Rupee ends at more than one month high against USD

The domestic currency closed at 73.67 against the US dollar, a level last seen on 23 October, from its previous close of 74.05.

Foreign institutional investor inflows in November surged to an all-time high of $8.32 billion. So far this year foreign investors have poured in $14.87 billion into Indian equities, according to NSDL website, that helped India’s key equity gauges in November cap their best month since April.

Indian benchmark equity indices settled higher on Tuesday led by a rally in realty and telecom. Sensex closed at 44,655.44, up 505.72 points or 1.15%.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may have bought dollar around ₹73.45/$1, as this has led to sharp paring of losses in dollar/rupee spot market, said Jateen Trivedi, Senior Research Analyst Commodity & Currency at LKP Securities

"Rupee had risen sharply to six-week low of ₹73.45/$1 by early noon trade Tuesday on likely inflows into local stocks after MSCI announced the addition of 12 Indian stocks to its global standard indices, bunched up dollar flows after an extended weekend and a weak greenback" he added.

India's GDP contracted 7.5% for the September quarter from a year ago against 8.2% drop forecast by economists. It was also a marked improvement from a record 23.9% contraction in the June quarter.

The fiscal deficit for April-October reached 9.53 tn rupees compared with the budget estimate of ₹7.96 trillion for the full year ending March 31, according to data released by the Controller General of Accounts.

From the beginning of the year, domestic Institutional Investors have been net buyers of ₹7296.05 crore of Indian equities.

Among Asian currencies, China Offshore gained 0.32%, followed by Philippine Peso 0.16% and Thai Baht 0.14%. However, Malaysian Ringgit lost 0.12, Indonesian Rupiah fell 0.07%.

Bloomberg contributed to the story