The Indian rupee slipped from a three-week high on Friday, unsettled by a fall in the stock market and hefty dollar demand from corporate, but still managed to post it biggest weekly rise in three months. The partially convertible rupee ended at 50.66/68 per dollar, 1.3 percent below an intraday peak of 50.02 hit in opening deals and below Thursdays close of 50.3650/3850.
On the week, the rupee rose 1.7 percent, its biggest gain since the week to December 19. It ended 3 percent above a record low of 52.2 hit earlier this month, helped by a rising stock market.
"There was a lot of dollar short-covering which pushed the rupee lower, and a large engineering firm was mopping up dollars from 50.20 levels," said a dealer at a private bank. One-month offshore non-deliverable forwards were quoting at 51.09/51.19, weaker than onshore. One-month volatilities, a gauge for expectations of movements, were around 10 percent, down from 17 percent earlier this month.