Mumbai, May 15: The rupee fell to a new low of 40.80 before closing at 40.55/60 against the dollar at the inter-bank foreign exchange market here on Friday. This is the lowest-ever closing price of the spot rupee. State Bank of India, which prevented the Indian currency from a free fall, is estimated to have sold $ 100-200 million today.Opening at 40.69/73, the rupee weakened immediately on fresh importer demand to touch 40.73 "Most of the trades were conducted at these levels during the day," a dealer in foreign bank said. A few trades were conducted at 40.78/80 before it came off after the SBI started selling dollars in a huge way."The SBI sold a huge chunk of dollars at 40.70/72 which strengthened the rupee to 40.55/57 and finally the Indian unit closed at 40.55/60," a dealer in a private bank said. Corporates are, however, not apprehensive about the fall of rupee any more. "The negative impact on the market will wear off now. The government has made it clear that FDIs are welcome and ECB routeis being relaxed," said a corporate source.Dealers said that the demand from importers was genuine and there was little scope for speculative activity. In fact, the one-year forward rupee in the non delivery forwards (NDF) market remained stagnant at 45 - only 70 paise weaker than the domestic rate of 44.30.Indicating that the high volatility is tapering off, the forward premium on six-month forward dollar closed at around 9 per cent, down from its previous close of 9.50.The six-month forwards opened lower on account of some profit taking, but went up in the afternoon after the call rates tightened. But forward rates came down after the call rates softened to close at 9.25 per cent. "Today's volatility was driven by call rates and also by import covering," a dealer in a Europe-based bank said.Dealers said that the State Bank of India was seen receiving in the forward segment in the latter half of the day when it sold dollars.
