Mumbai: The Indian rupee weakened past 68 mark against the US dollar on Friday after trade deficit widened to $14.62 billion in May. At 2.13pm, the rupee was trading at 68.01 against the US dollar, down 0.55% from its previous close of 67.63. The currency opened at 67.89 a dollar and touched a low of 68.03.
Trade deficit for May stood at $14.62 billion, wider than a median $14.30 billion deficit projected in a Bloomberg survey and $13.85 billion a year ago.
So far this year, the rupee has weakened 6%, while foreign investors have sold $178.50 million and $5.10 billion in equity and debt markets, respectively.
The 10-year bond yield stood at 7.919%, from its Thursday’s close of 7.945%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.
Benchmark Sensex Index fell 0.38% or 136.08 points to 35,463.74. Since January, it has gained 4.1%
Asian currencies were trading lower as a more dovish-than-expected European Central Bank (ECB) boosted the greenback. ECB said that it would phase out asset purchases by the year end and pledged to keep interest rates at current level of record lows at least through the summer of 2019.
Traders also cautious after President Trump has approved tariffs on about $50 billion of Chinese goods.
South Korean won was down 0.9%, Philippines peso 0.68%, Thai Baht 0.45%, Taiwan dollar 0.23%, China renminbi 0.21%, Singapore dollar 0.07%, Japanese yen 0.07%, Indonesian rupiah 0.06%. However, Malaysian ringgit was up 0.23%.
The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 94.965, up 0.09% from its previous close of 94.879.
Bloomberg contributed to this story