Wednesday November 18, 10:00 AM

Rupee up on unwinding of long dlr positions

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The rupee nudged higher on Wednesday as traders unwound long dollar positions, with the U.S. unit easing against majors.

At 9:40 a.m. (0410 GMT), the partially convertible rupee was at 46.27/28 per dollar, off a high of 46.22 and marginally above its previous close of 46.30/31.

"There are no major cues on either sides today and the rupee is likely to be held in a range of 46.15-46.35," said Madhusudan Somani, head of foreign exchange trading at Yes Bank (YESBANK.NS : 249.55 +3.6).

"Today morning's selling was due to the squaring off of overnight small long dollar positions. There were good oil bids at the lower levels," he said.

Oil is India's biggest import and refiners are the largest buyers of dollars in the local currency market.

Dealers said they would be watching the dollar's moves versus majors and domestic shares for further direction.

The dollar index, a gauge of the U.S. unit's performance versus six majors, was down 0.1 percent.

At 0400 GMT, the MSCI index of Asian stocks ex-Japan was almost flat while the Nifty (^NSEI : 5245.9 +14) India stock futures traded in Singapore were down 0.5 percent, suggesting a flat to lower start to the local sharemarket.

Foreigners have bought $15.1 billion worth of shares so far in 2009, after selling more than $13 billion last year. The inflows have helped the rupee recover from a record low of 52.2 in March.

One-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were quoting at 46.26/29, slightly stronger than the onshore spot rate, suggesting a bullish near-term outlook.

(Reporting by Swati Bhat; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)