The Indian rupee strengthened on Friday, helped by a 1.5 percent rise in the local share market with the dollar's losses versus most major currencies also underpinning market sentiment.
The partially convertible rupee closed at 48.62/63 per dollar, 0.2 percent stronger than its Thursday's close of 48.71/72. However, the rupee is down 0.8 percent on the week and has been dropping for two straight weeks.
"The dollar-rupee played the 48.60-48.90 range well within the near term range of 48.50-49.00 today. The move was driven largely by stock market which was volatile with Sensex recovering from 14,835 to 15,275 and the EUR/USD also rallying," said J. Moses Harding, head of global markets at IndusInd Bank.
One-month offshore non-deliverable forward rupee contracts were quoting at 48.71/81, 0.2 percent weaker than the onshore spot closing rate. In the currency futures market, the most traded near-month contract on the National Stock Exchange and MCX-SX closed at 48.6225 each, with the total traded volume on the two exchanges at about $2 billion.