Recovering for the second day, the Indian rupee on Friday reclaimed the 90 mark after hitting its all-time low of 91.5 against the dollar recently. The recovery comes on the back of corporate dollar inflows,
broad dollar weakness, and likely intervention from the Reserve Bank of India. The rupee on Friday traded at 89.96 against the US dollar in the early trade.
The rupee had slipped to its record low of 91.1 to a dollar earlier this week, after falling for five consecutive sessions.
Anil Kumar Bhansali, head of treasury and executive director of Finrex Treasury Advisors LLP, said, “The Indian rupee remains in a range of 90-90.50. The rupee fall may have acted as a shock absorber to the high tariffs imposed by the US President Trump while RBI caps the volatility. Corporate dollar inflows and broad dollar weakness supported rupee for a second straight day.”
The rupee has fallen nearly 6% against the US dollar so far in 2025, making it one of the worst-performing emerging market currencies, as steep US tariffs on Indian exports have hurt trade and foreign portfolio flows.
At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened at 90.19 against the US dollar, then gained some ground and touched 89.96 against the US dollar, registering a gain of 24 paise over its previous close.
In initial trade it also touched 90.22 against the American currency. On Thursday, the rupee appreciated 18 paise against the US dollar to close at 90.20 against the greenback.
The rupee sank to a fresh record low, breaching the 91-a-dollar mark for the first time on Tuesday.
The US CPI came lower than expected but was also due to non-collection of sufficient data and therefore, the next month’s CPI becomes more important, Bhansali said, adding that “Rupee remains in a range of 90-90.50”.
Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.04 per cent higher at 98.46.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading lower by 0.27 per cent at $59.66 per barrel in futures trade.
On the domestic equity market front, the 30-share benchmark index Sensex climbed 375.98 points to 84,857.79, while the Nifty was up 110.60 points to 25,934.15.
Foreign Institutional Investors purchased equities worth Rs 595.78 crore on Thursday, according to exchange data.
Meanwhile, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) member Sanjeev Sanyal on Thursday said he is not concerned about the rupee at all, arguing that even China and Japan witnessed exchange rate weaknesses during their high growth phases.
Speaking at ‘Times Network’s India Economic Conclave 2025’, Sanyal said since the 90s, the rupee has mostly been allowed to find its own level, but the RBI uses its reserves to intervene in either direction to stop excessive volatility.
“I am not concerned about the rupee at all… Let me say that the rupee and its current weakness should not be necessarily conflated with some economic worry, because historically, if you go over time, you will see that economies that are in their high growth phase very often go through a phase of exchange rate weakness,” he said.
