The Indian rupee on Thursday strengthened in afternoon trade against the dollar due to dollar sales by a corporate.At 2.28pm, the home currency was trading at 60.83, up 0.21% from its previous close of 60.96, while India’s equity benchmark Sensex index was trading at 27,056.09 points on BSE, up 0.01%.

The local unit had opened at 60.86 per dollar. The gain was due to dollar sales by a large petrochemicals company, Reuters reported on Thursday.Most Asian currencies were trading mixed. The Philippines peso was trading up 0.4%, Malaysian ringgit gained 0.4% and Thai baht rose 0.03%, while South Korean won was down 0.1%, Taiwan Dollar 0.1% and Japanese Yen 0.05%.
The yield on India’s 10-year benchmark bond was trading at 8.511%, compared with its Wednesday’s close of 8.543%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.

Since the beginning of this year, the rupee has gained 1.62%, while foreign institutional investors have bought $13.98 billion from local equity markets.The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 84.196, down 0.1% from the previous close of 84.283.

For the fourth consecutive month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was a net purchaser of dollars after it bought $5.453 billion in July from the spot market, RBI monthly data showed. The central bank’s intervention in the foreign exchange market is to curb volatility in the currency market.On Friday, the government will issue Index of Industrial Production (IIP) and Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for the month of July and August, respectively.

Source:- livemint.com