India's reserves fall for a fifth week, yet the rupee recovers

According to RBI data reported by The Tribune, 7.142 billion dollars of the decline came from foreign currency assets, which fell to 597.605 billion dollars. Gold reserves dropped 1.319 billion dollars to 105.094 billion dollars, and special drawing rights at the IMF fell 109 million dollars to 18.548 billion dollars. Reserves are nonetheless 34.92 billion dollars above their end-March 2026 level and 28.244 billion dollars higher than a year earlier. Outlook Business says reserves stood at 734.6 billion dollars the previous week, on 2 October.

According to an Outlook Business report based on Reuters, the RBI had built a currency buffer of more than 140 billion dollars through emergency measures that took effect on 8 June. Economists and currency dealers at 6 banks estimate that 75–80 billion dollars of that buffer, roughly half, has been spent through spot dollar sales and dollar-rupee swaps. The RBI's forward dollar liabilities, the dollars it has committed to deliver at future dates, were about 200 billion dollars at the end of September. Last week the bank opened a separate dollar window for oil companies and imposed a cash margin requirement on some forward dollar purchases.

According to PTI data carried by Telangana Today, the rupee opened at 94.75 on 16 October, traded between 94.71 and 95.06 and closed 7 paise higher at 94.92. On the same day Brent stood at 105.56 dollars a barrel and the dollar index at 101.445. Foreign institutional investors were net sellers of 5,285.37 crore rupees on 15 October. Kaveri More, an analyst at Choice Broking, said the rupee was approaching a critical support zone around 94.