The Indian rupee rose for a fifth session in six on Wednesday as investors remained hopeful for a parliamentary approval to foreign direct investment in the multi-brand retail sector which will be put to vote in the lower house later in the day. "Rupee gains were mostly sentiment driven today with the euro being stronger and on expectations of the parliament approving FDI in retail. Lesser oil demand also helped," said Ashtosh Raina, head of foreign exchange trading at HDFC Bank.

"If FDI gets approved, 54.00 (level) should be broken," he added. The partially convertible rupee closed at 54.54/55 per dollar versus its previous close of 54.68/69. In the offshore non-deliverable forwards market, the one-month was at 54.81 while the three-month was at 55.34. 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 all closed at around 54.7875 with a total traded volume of $4.29 billion.

Copyright Reuters, 2012