The central bank's intervention by way of dollar sales was the reason behind depletion of forex reserves, experts tracking the forex market said. The RBI's actions were aimed at mitigating the adverse impact of dollar outflows on rupee.
At the interbank forex market, the local unit opened higher at 75.97 but lost some of the gains to touch the day's low of 76.15. It witnessed an intra-day high of 75.90.
The regulator Sebi is trying to balance the interests of retail participation, whose share in trading is climbing, with institutional players that face operational hurdles in rejigging their backend systems to the new cycle. The via media being worked out involves foreshortening the clearance mechanism for retail traders, while allowing foreign institutions some leeway because of time zones.
"Rupee has been oscillating between 76 and 76.50 for the last six trading sessions. Even after a stronger dollar index, the rupee manages to add gains amid lower crude oil prices, higher equities and corporates dollar selling" Dilip Parmar, Research Analyst, HDFC Securities, said.
The stock exchanges and clearing corporations are understood to be actively exploring a mechanism where FPIs can pay soon after the foreign exchange market opens on the morning of T+1 (i.e, the day after a deal is struck) instead of arranging funds and confirming trades in the previous evening when liquidity dries up in the money and forex markets.
"FIIs turning into buying mode is a positive for the equity market, however, due to the ongoing global uncertainties, domestic retail investors lack the confidence to take fresh positions," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.
The yen made a six-year low of 121.41 per dollar on Wednesday and was pinned near that level at 121.25 in morning trade as investors expect the Bank of Japan to lag way behind policy tightening by other major central banks fighting inflation.
On diversification of reserves, Das said that India’s forex holdings are distributed in various foreign currencies not just concentrated in one. “We have gold reserves, which are dispersed partly in India and partly outside…The other issue is that you hold your reserves as what? Are you going to move completely towards gold? Liquidity also should be there,” said Das.
The Indian rupee plunged to a record low of 77.02 against a US dollar on March 7. According to the market analysts, the RBI intervened in the currency markets by selling dollars. The central bank is estimated to have sold $1 billion a day during the week to prevent further weakness in the Indian currency.