India Rupee touches all time low; ends at 68.79 vs US dollar

Mumbai: The Indian rupee, after breaching the important level of 69 and reaching an all time low, ended at 68.79 per dollar on Thursday.

The website of Foreign Exchange Dealers Association of India showed that Indian Rupee ended 18 paise weaker than the previous close of 68.61 per dollar.

Earlier in the day it touched an all time low and breached the 69 per dollar mark, due to high crude oil prices and weak macro-economic fundamentals.

The rupee's last record low was 68.87 per dollar, hit on November 24, 2016.

"A sharp fall in the rupee is a panic reaction in response to oil price rise and caution by the Reserve Bank of India on the NPA (non-performing assets) situation in banks in its recently released financial stability report," said Deepak Jasani, Head of Retail Research at HDFC Securities.

"Escalating trade rhetoric between the US and China/EU is bringing pressure on Asian currencies," Jasani told IANS.

According to Rahul Sharma, Senior Research Analyst at Equity99, if 69.5 level is taken out then there might be a sharp depreciation in the rupee in coming days and it may move towards 72 mark in near term.

"The Indian rupee fell to a lifetime low today due to several factors like rising dollar and crude aided by a wider current account deficit and continuous outflow from FIIs (Foreign Institutional Investors) pushed the currency lower," he said, adding that FIIs have sold over Rs 40,000 crore in debt and equity so far this year.