Mumbai: The Indian rupee on Monday strengthened against the US dollar after wholesale price-based inflation hit a record low of -4.95% in August on cheaper fuel. The wholesale price index (WPI) for the month of July was at -4.05%. The home currency closed at 66.34, up 0.31% from its previous close of 66.54. The local unit had opened at 66.42 a dollar. Numbers for consumer price-based inflation will be released later in the day, but the reading is expected to be lower at 3.54% for August, from 3.78% in July, according to a Bloomberg poll. The benchmark Sensex rose 0.96% or 246.49 points to close at 25,856.70 points. The yield on India’s 10-year benchmark bond closed at 7.755%, compared with the Friday close of 7.773%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions. Since the beginning of this year, the rupee has lost 4.96%, while foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have pumped $3.63 billion into local equity and $6.14 billion into bond markets. Most Asian currencies closed higher. The Philippines peso was up 0.34%, the Japanese yen 0.28%, the Singapore dollar 0.26%, the Malaysian ringgit 0.16%, the Chinese renminbi 0.11% and the South Korean won 0.11%. However, the Indonesian rupiah was down 0.08%. The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 95.277, up 0.07% from its previous close of 95.194. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) rose 4.2% in July, compared with a revised 4.4% in June, data released by the government on Friday had showed. India’s current account deficit further contracted in the first quarter of 2015-16 as lower global crude oil prices helped rein in India’s import bill. In the April-June period, the current account deficit came in at $6.2 billion, or 1.2% of gross domestic product (GDP), compared with $7.8 billion, or 1.6% of GDP, in the year-ago period, balance of payments data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed.

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