At 11.14am, the home currency was trading at 65.09, down 0.12% from its previous close of 65.02

The Indian rupee on Monday opened higher, but soon erased all of its gains and was trading marginally lower against the US dollar.

At 11.14am, the home currency was trading at 65.09, down 0.12% from its previous close of 65.02. It opened at 64.96 and touched a high and a low of 65.96 and 65.13 respectively.

So far this year, the rupee has gained 4.3%, while foreign institutional investors have bought $8.02 billion and $22.34 billion in equity and debt,
respectively.

The 10-year bond yield dropped most in a year on Monday after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) scrapped plans to sell bonds worth Rs10,000 crore via open market operations.

At 11.14am, 10-year bond yield was trading at 6.905%, down 14.40 basis points, its biggest slide since November 2016, from its previous close of 7.049%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.

RBI’s move came after Moody’s Investor Services raised India’s rating from the lowest investment grade of Baa3 to Baa2 and changed the outlook from stable to positive.

In the past few sessions, OMO sales by RBI, worries over a possible fiscal slippage by the government and increase in crude oil prices led to a rise in bond
yields, Mint reported.   So far this year, the Sensex has gained 25.22%.

Asian currencies were trading mixed. South Korean won was down 0.26%, China renminbi 0.11% and Singapore dollar 0.06%. However, Japanese yen was up 0.09%, Thai baht 0.09% and Malaysian ringgit 0.06%.

The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 93.969, up 0.33% from its previous close of 93.662.

source: livemint.com