Rupee in Thursday's trade opened at 70 per US dollar against previous day's close of 69.87. The continuous surge in crude oil prices in the global market is likely to put a pressure on the Indian currency in the near term.

Also, there is seen a rise in the dollar index which might cause further depreciation of the rupee and it could lower to up to 70.50 a dollar in the spot market. However with positive sentiments in the domestic stock market on hopes of NDA government coming back to power post general assembly elections, there is unlikely to be sharp fall in the rupee.

The yield on 10-year government bonds also stood 7.4410%.

At 9:17 am, the rupee further weakened to 70.0538 with a loss of 18 paise or 0.2631%.

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