Indian rupee scores worst fall in four months

The Indian rupee suffered the worst fall in four months, shedding 3.68 percent in March, hammered by investor jitters over the impact of high global oil prices on an economy still licking the wounds of a fierce inflation battle that has crimped growth and widened deficits.
On the day, the rupee put on a good show aided by a surge in local stocks and dollar sales by exporters trying to cash in on the last session of the 2011/12 fiscal year. "There is nothing cheerful domestically, and oil prices react in a complex way with the Indian economy. It hurts fiscal deficit, while seeping directly into inflation," said a currency strategist at a foreign bank in Singapore.
The rupee ended at 50.87/88 to the dollar, stronger than its 51.39/40 close on Thursday when it fell more than 1 percent mainly due to dollar demand from oil importers. The rupee's 3.68 percent fall in March was its steepest drop since last November's 6.7 percent slide. The currency shed 12.35 percent in the 2011/12 fiscal year, Thomson Reuters data showed.
The one-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were at 51.28 on Friday. In the currency futures market, the most-traded near-month dollar-rupee contracts on the National Stock Exchange, the MCX-SX and on the United Stock Exchange all ended at around 51.24, on a combined volume of $4.84 billion.