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Indian Rupee: Rallies As BJP Leads

The Indian rupee rallies on Friday, 16 May, 2014 to a more than 10 month high against the US dollar after early trends in Lok Sabha elect...

The Indian rupee rallies on Friday, 16 May, 2014 to a more than 10 month high against the US dollar after early trends in Lok Sabha election results showed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) leading in a large number of seats. The domestic currency opened stronger by 28 paise at Rs 59.00 versus the greenback and surged to a high of 58.63 so far during the day. In the spot currency market, the Indian unit was last seen trading at 58.63, higher by 65 paise or 1.10% as compared to previous close at 59.28.


Rupee strengthened to its highest level in about 10 months on Thursday, while also posting its biggest single-day gain in nearly three weeks on the back of sustained dollar inflows into domestic shares ahead of election results.


Domestic benchmark indices surged and hit record high after the early trends of Lok Sabha elections showed that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was leading in the elections. Investors are hoping that the BJP-led government will be better at getting things done and more business-friendly than the current Congress-party-led coalition government.

Meanwhile, Asian shares were under pressure on Friday morning, with Japanese stocks skidding as the yen rose against the dollar, which has struggled in recent days on the back of lower U.S. Treasury yields.

The domestic market sentiment was also boosted by data showing that foreign funds made purchases of Indian stocks on Thursday, 15 May 2014. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 934.94 crore on Thursday, 15 May 2014, as per provisional data from the stock exchanges. At the time of writing, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 808.57 points or 3.38% to 24,714.17 while the CNX Nifty was up 214.70 points or 3.01% to 7,337.85.

In the global currency market, the euro was back in familiar territory against the dollar early on Friday, having staged a surprisingly strong rebound from a 2-1/2 month trough as investors booked profits on bearish positions ahead of the weekend.