Indian rupee marginally up

The Indian rupee seesawed before closing marginally higher on Wednesday as demand for dollars from oil firms was offset by gains of more than a percent in the domestic sharemarket and a weak US unit overseas. The partially convertible rupee closed at 45.04/05 per dollar, 0.1 percent above its 45.09/10 close on Tuesday.
"With month-end demand out of the way on shift into new month, rupee should extend its gains into 44.50-44.65 by end January," said J. Moses Harding, head of global markets at IndusInd Bank. One-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were quoted at 45.25, weaker than the onshore spot rate. In the currency futures market, the most traded near-month dollar-rupee contracts on the National Stock Exchange and MCX-SX closed at 45.2925, with the total traded volume on the two exchanges at $4.4 billion.