The rupee strengthened by 35 paise to 64.82 as the greenback came under pressure after US President Donald Trump’s comments raised concerns of a global trade war.
Trump had on Friday said trade wars were good and easy to win. His plan to put tariffs on steel and aluminium imports triggered negative sentiment across overseas markets.
Forex dealers said the dollar’s weakness against some other currencies overseas and foreign capital inflows in the domestic equity markets supported the rupee.
The domestic unit opened strong at 65.08 at the interbank foreign exchange market today. It hovered in a range of 65.14 and 64.82 before quoting at 65.13, up 4 paise at 4.25 pm local time.
According to provisional exchange data, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) had bought shares worth a net Rs 241.85 crore on net basis on Thursday.
On Thursday, the rupee failed to benefit from highly bullish macroeconomic trends and ended virtually stable at 65.17 against the US dollar even as India regained title of world’s fastest-growing major economy amid imminent Fed rate hike fears.
Meanwhile, the Sensex ended lower by 300.16 points or 0.88 per cent at 33,746.78 and the Nifty closed down by 99.5 points or 0.95 per cent at 10,358.85 due to fears over global trade war amid political uncertainty in Italy.