The Reserve Bank’s forex reserves, which got a big boost from the special dollar swap windows mobilisation from NRIs and had risen to $785.7 billion earlier last month, has lost more than $41 billion in the past four weeks, dropping by $12.952 billion to $734.61 billion for the week to October 2.
In the previous reporting week to September 25, the key external defence has logged its highest decline on record, dropping by a whopping $18.343 billion to $747.557 billion. In the week to September 18, the reserves fell by $14.881 billion and the week before that lost another $4.92 billion.
The reserves are falling and have lost all their gains from the dollar influx and down over 7 % year to date, forcing the regular market intervention by the central bank. It had lost 9.9% in the last fiscal. The unit had closed at 96.88 Thursday, which just 10 paise lower than its record low seen on May 20. On October 7, it had briefly crossed 97.15 and nobody expects the unit to fare better given spiralling crude prices and the evolving macro and geopolitical tension.
According to the latest data from the central bank released on Friday, the reserves dropped by $12.952 billion to $734.606 billion for the reporting week to October 2.
The reserves had touched an all-time high of $785.706 billion for the week to September 4 on the back of a heavy flow of currency as part of a special concessional swap for deposits from the diaspora through which banks raised a record sum of nearly $133 billion.
Dilip Parmar, senior research analyst at HDFC Securities told TNIE that in the near term, the rupee is likely to see resistance at 97 and support at 95.30.