The Indian rupee ended steady on Thursday, recovering from the day's lows on suspected central bank intervention and dollar-selling by nationalised banks for a second day in a row, but the local unit remains vulnerable in the near term. The rupee closed steady on Thursday at its previous close of 53.07/08 to the dollar, after touching a low of 53.51 to the dollar.
In recent sessions, the RBI-imposed curbs on banks' trading limits to help rein in speculation on the currency, which hit a record low of 54.30 on December 15 , were also keeping volumes low in the local forex market, traders said. The one-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were quoted at 53.06, indicating more weakness was likely in the spot rate in the short-term. In the currency futures market, the most-traded near-month dollar-rupee contracts on the National Stock Exchange, the MCX-SX and the United Stock Exchange traded around 53.60, with the total volume at $1.9 billion.