Rupee slumps to 65.18

The rupee slumped to 65.18 as domestic equities plunged on rising US-China trade war fears.

The Sensex plunged over 350 points at the closing trade on escalating trade war worries as China hit back at the Trump administration's plan to slap tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods, retaliating with a list of similar duties on key US imports including soyabeans, planes, cars, whiskey and chemicals.

Investors also stayed on the sidelines ahead of the

Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy announcement on Thursday. The RBI is likely to hold the policy repo rate in its first bi-monthly monetary policy review for FY2019 on April 5.

The domestic unit opened up by 4 paise at 64.97 at the interbank foreign exchange market today. It hovered in a range of 65.18 and 64.90 before ending at 65.16, down 13 paise at 5 pm local time.

Yesterday, the local currency strengthened by 17 paise to close at 65.01 per dollar on fresh selling of the dollar.

In the overseas market, the dollar fell 0.1 per cent to 106.50 yen, giving back some of the gains made on Tuesday, when it rose 0.6 per cent against the Japanese currency.