The Indian rupee reversed the rising trend from a 32-month high falling by 13 paise against the US dollar in the late trade on Monday. The rupee made a fresh 32-month high in the morning trades but lost the gains in the last hour session. The rupee jumped as much as 12 paise in the early trade at 63.25 a piece US dollar. During the day, the rupee hovered in a range of 63.25 to 63.50 before settling down 13 paise against US dollar at 63.5 on the interbank foreign exchange market. The Reserve Bank of India fixed the reference rate of the rupee at 63.3482 against the US dollar on Monday. Earlier on Friday last week, the Indian rupee continued the appreciation and hit a 32-month high against US dollar. The rupee hit a 32-month high of 63.31 rising by 10 paise against the US dollar on Friday. The rupee had been on a rising streak from mid-November 2017 since then it had appreciated by around 200 paise from a level of 65.42 against the US dollar.
As the time period for the Union Budget 2018 shortens many experts believe that going ahead, Indian economy will improve and the corporate earnings will show signs of improvement in the financial year 2019. A report by Standard Chartered pegged a better growth for India, saying that the worst is over for the GDP. “We expect growth to normalise gradually over the next four to six quarters as the disruptive impact of major policy changes fades,” Standard Chartered said in its Economic Outlook in 2018 report. The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) also rose to 54.7 in December, a five-year high, as growth was recorded across all three monitored categories — consumer, intermediate and investment.
Meanwhile, the benchmark Sensex index closed up 198.94 points or 0.58% at a lifetime high of 34,352.79 while the broader Nifty added 64.75 points or 0.61% to conclude at a recrod peak of 10,623.6. The key equity indices Sensex and Nifty extended gains on the second Monday of new year 2018 and rallied to record highs taking their respective annual returns to hold around 28-29%. In the intraday trade, the S&P BSE Sensex clocked as much as 221 points to hit a fresh all-time high of 34,374.85 while the wider 50-share index Nifty added 64.35 points to mark the record high of 10,623.2. Indian stock markets surged to record highs very quickly after opening on a higher note on Monday with most of the sectoral indices finishing in green. the broad market indices of NSE such as Nifty Next 50, Nifty Midcap 50, Nifty Mid100 Free, Nifty Sml100 Free, Nifty 100, Nifty 200, Nifty 500 rose in a range of 0.6% to 1.5% while India Vix advanced 5.43%.
