The Indian rupee on Monday weakened against the dollar, tracking the losses in the Asian currencies market. The local unit opened at 62.59 per dollar. At 9.09am, the home currency was trading at 62.57, down 0.25% from previous close of 62.42. The Sensex index rose 0.75% or 204.75 points to 27,663.39 points.

Major Asian currencies were trading lower against the dollar. The Malaysian ringgit was down 0.67%, Singapore dollar down 0.31%, Indonesian rupiah 0.19%, South Korean won 0.19%, Thai baht 0.15%, Japanese yen 0.08%, Taiwan dollar and Philippines peso fell 0.06% each.

As financial year is closing, the traders are cautious with the next week getting shortened with mere two market working days—30 March and 31 March. Bank transactions will not happened on 1 April due to annual closure of accounts while 2 and 3 April will be bank holiday for ‘Mahavir Jayanti’ and ‘Good Friday’ respectively. To add to their woes, the markets will be closed on 4 and 5 April due to weekly holidays.

The yield on India’s 10-year benchmark bond was trading at 7.77% compared with its Friday’s close of 7.777%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.

Since the beginning of this year, the rupee has gained 1%, while foreign institutional investors have bought $5.77 billion from local equity and $6.88 billion from bond markets.

The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 97.495, up 0.21% from the previous close of 97.499.

Source:livemint.com