Rupee
RupeeReuters

The Indian rupee opened weaker at 60.1575 per dollar on Thursday against Wednesday's closing value 60.1350 a dollar at Interbank Foreign Exchange market.

Traders expect the rupee to move in the range of 60 to 60.50 per dollar on Thursday following the Iraq crisis, according to Reuters.

Most Asian currencies weakened against the dollar on Thursday.

At 2:30 pm, the rupee recorded 60.1525 per dollar and the price of other major currencies versus the dollar and the rupee is below:

Symbol Value vs. Dollar Value vs. Rupee Change % Change
Euro 1.3615 81.9139 -0.0015 -0.11
Japanese Yen 101.7450( one dollar) 0.5908 -0.0935 -0.09
British Pound Sterling 1.7021 102.1950 +0.0039 0.23
Canadian dollar 1.0712 56.1531 -0.0009 -0.08
Hong Kong dollar 7.7516 7.7621 -0.0001 0
Chinese- Yuan Renminbi 6.2252 9.6558 -0.0103 -0.17
Australian dollar 0.9410 56.6061 +0.0007 0.07

Brent crude oil was last traded for $113.93 per barrel, and it settled close to a nine month high above $114 a barrel as Sunni insurgents fought government forces to take control of Iraq's biggest refinery on Wednesday.

"The budget is the next key event. The market will await the fiscal deficit numbers but it may not have a big impact on the rupee as such," Reuters quoted Pramod Patil, assistant vice-president, forex and fixed income at United Overseas Bank.

"I expect the rupee to be in a range of 59.70 to 60.55 per dollar range with a bias towards dollar-buying due to the month-end demand and the Iraq issue," he added.

On Thursday, the reference rate for the US Dollar and Euro was fixed at 60.1618 and 82.0440.  The value of one British Pound and 100 Japanese Yen was fixed at 102.2323 and 59.12.

The RBI purchased 51 securities worth 218.18 billion with 8 percent rate during one day repo auction on Thursday morning.

However, the BSE index fell by 0.23 percent, while NSE index too declined 0.19 percent lower during early trade on Thursday. Sensex opened flat at 25,217.69 points with a drop of 96.05 points and Nifty opened at 7554.10 points with a decline of 15.15 points.

Asian markets recorded high on Thursday. Nikkei index was recorded 15308.49 points with an increase of 41.88 points, while Hang Seng index recorded 23070.81 points with an increase of 204.11 points.

In the meantime, all the US based stock indices recorded high, but major European markets FTSE 100, DAX, CAC 40 and TR Europe declined by 53.45, 70.33, 50.74 and 1.38 points respectively.