The Indian rupee rose to its strongest in more than a week on Wednesday, gaining on huge dollar sales by a corporate and a rally in the local share market, dealers said. The partially convertible rupee ended at 49.48/50 per dollar, off the day's peak of 49.25, its highest since November 17, but still 0.9 percent stronger than its previous close of 49.93/95.
It had fallen to a record low of 50.60 last week. "I heard there were some heavy dollar inflows, to the extent of around $1 billion, which helped the rupee. The softening of the non-deliverable forward rates also was positive," said V. Kumar, chief dealer with State Bank of Travancore. Other dealers said the dollars were likely sold on behalf of telecoms company Tata Teleservices and linked to a recent stake sale to Japan's DoCoMo.
DoCoMo Inc recently bought a 26 percent stake in Tata Teleservices for $2.7 billion. One-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were quoting at 49.83/98 per dollar, weaker than the onshore spot rate but still stronger than 51 plus levels seen in recent days.