The Indian rupee was trading marginally lower against the US dollar in afternoon trade on Thursday, as dealers avoided taking huge positions ahead of the key economic data due on Friday.

The government will issue gross domestic product (GDP) data for the September quarter and fiscal deficit data for October on 28 November. A Bloomberg poll estimates GDP for the September quarter will be 5.1% as compared with 5.7% in the June quarter.

The local unit opened at 61.82 per dollar. At 2.54pm, the home currency was trading at 61.88 per dollar, down 0.05% from previous close of 61.85, while India’s equity benchmark Sensex index was trading at 28,366.59 points on BSE, down 0.07%.

Most of the Asian currencies were trading higher. South Korean won up 0.75%, Japanese Yen 0.32%, Philippines peso 0.21%, Malaysian ringgit 0.16%, Indonesian rupiah 0.07% and Taiwan dollar 0.06%.
The yield on India’s 10-year benchmark bond was trading at 8.153%, compared with its Wednesday close of 8.145%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday announced a sale of government of India dated securities (G-secs) worth Rs.12,000 crore through open market operations (OMOs) on 1 December.A number of bank economists and treasurers say that a reduction in interest rates is unlikely at the central bank’s next monetary policy review on 2 December.

A survey of 10 economists and bank treasurers showed that no one is expecting an immediate cut in interest rates; instead they expect RBI governor Raghuram Rajan to wait until there is more clarity on the inflation trajectory and global developments such as commodity prices and monetary policy in the US, Mint reported.
Since the beginning of this year, the rupee has weakened 0.08%, while foreign institutional investors have bought $15.73 billion during the period from local equity markets.

The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 87.699, up 0.11% from the previous close of 87.607.

Source:- livemint.com