Mumbai, Apr 10: Paring its early gains, the rupee today lost 33 paise to close at nearly three-month low of 51.47/48 against the US currency following heavy dollar demand from importers amid some hesistancy in local stocks.
Firm dollar overseas amid fresh capital outflows too dampened the rupee sentiment, a dealer said.
At the Interbank Foreign Exchange market, the domestic unit opened a bit higher at 51.13/14 a dollar from previous close of 51.14/15. It immediately touched a high of 51.02 on early rise in local stocks and some dollar selling by exporters.
However, heavy dollar demand from importers, mainly oil importers, later weighed on the rupee and it fell back to a low of 51.4950 before concluding at 51.47/48, a net loss of 0.65 per cent.
“The rupee reversed the gains on non-deliverable forward (NDF) arbitrage buying and strengthening dollar. RBI's intervention aided some gains but the price couldn't sustain the gains and edged lower,” Pramit Brahmbhatt, CEO, Alpari Financial Services (India) said.
The rupee premium for the forward dollar ended further slightly better on stray paying pressure from banks and corporates.
The benchmark six-month forward dollar premium payable in September finished a tad higher at 173-175 paise from last close of 172-174 paise while far-forward contracts maturing in March rates were not (not) received from source.
The BSE benchmark Sensex today closed slightly up by 21.70 points, or 0.13 per cent.
The dollar index was up by nearly 0.15 per cent against a basket of currencies while New York crude oil was trading below USD 102 a dollar today.
The RBI fixed the reference rate for the US dollar at 51.2040 and for euro at 67.1545. The rupee reacted downwards to 81.51/53 against the pound sterling from overnight close of 81.09/11 and also fell back against the euro to 67.30/32 from 66.86/88.
It remained weak against the Japanese yen to settle at 63.44/46 per 100 yen against last close of 62.87/89.
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