Mumbai: The Indian rupee strengthened against the US dollar on Friday, tracking the gains in Equity market. At 2pm, the rupee was trading at 68.49 a dollar, up 0.11% from its Thursday’s close of 68.57. It opened at 68.38 a dollar and touched a high and a low of 68.32 and 68.52, respectively.

The benchmark Sensex gained 0.19%, or 71.14 points to 36,619.55 points in pre-opening session.

The 10-year bond yield was trading at 7.77% compared to its previous close of 7.78%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.

So far this year, rupee lost 6.76%, while foreign institutional investors have sold $716.57 million in equity and $8.62 billion in debt respectively.

Asian currencies were trading mixed. South Korean won gained 0.235%, Indonesian rupiah 0.083% and Hong Kong dollar 0.001%. However, China renminbi lost 0.365%, Singapore Dollar lost 0.344%, Thai baht 0.339%, China offshore 0.293%, Taiwan dollar 0.212%, Malaysian ringgit 0.190%, Japanese yen 0.186% and Philippines peso 0.105%.

The dollar index, which measures the US currency’s strength against major currencies, was trading at 95.171, up 0.36%, from its previous close of 94.83.