Indian rupee extends intervention-spurred rise, merchant flows dominate

MUMBAI: The Indian rupee extended gains slightly on Thursday, after rebounding from a record low in the previous session following  central bank market intervention, which also contributed to a rise in merchant dollar sales, traders said.

The Indian rupee closed at 90.24, 0.1% stronger than Wednesday’s close of 90.38 per dollar.

The currency had dropped to its record low of 91.075 earlier this week as an elongated trade impasse with the U.S. and persistent portfolio outflows weighed on sentiment.

Traders said that following the Reserve Bank of India’s heavy-handed intervention on Wednesday, interest in taking on fresh speculative rupee shorts diminished, while both exporters and importers seemed more inclined to lock in hedges.

“We think the INR’s nominal and real effective exchange rates and have depreciated sufficiently to mitigate punitive U.S. tariffs, and INR can therefore recover if some tariffs are rolled back,” analysts at HSBC said, recommending a sell USD/INR trade.

The firm expects the rupee to trade at 88 per dollar by the end of March 2026, benefiting from positive seasonality between January and March, “when the trade deficit tends to be the smallest, while external commercial borrowing inflows tend to be the largest.”

Currently, the rupee is set to log an about 5.5% decline against the dollar over 2025, its steepest drop in three years.

Meanwhile, India’s benchmark equity indexes, the BSE Sensex and Nifty 50, ended little changed after choppy trading as global risk appetite remained tepid, dragging down tech-sensitive stocks in Asia.

The dollar index was a tad higher at 98.5, as markets positioned for central bank decisions in Britain, Europe and Japan.

The European Central Bank is expected to stand pat, while an unexpected drop in inflation has bolstered the case for a cut by the Bank of England. The Bank of Japan is expected to lift rates to a three-decade high on Friday.