Rupee falls for 5th straight week; ends at 9-month low

Zee Media Bureau

The Indian rupee fell against the greenback for the 5th consecutive week on heavy month-end dollar demand from banks and importers amidst sustained foreign capital inflows into record breaking equity market.

The rupee opened slightly higher at 61.7450 per dollar as against the last weekend level of 61.76 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) Market and moved up further to 61.65 on initial selling of dollars by banks and exporters on persistent capital inflows.

However, it failed to maintain initial gains and fell back to a low of 62.0725 before logging its nine-month closing low of 62.03 per dollar on month-end dollar demand from importers, showing a loss of 27 paise or 0.44 percent.

Last time, it had settled at 62.4 on March 3, 2014.

It has dropped by 76 paise or 1.24 percent in the during the five weeks.

The benchmark S&P BSE 30-share Sensex closed up by 359.36 points or 1.27 pct to a new peak while FPIs/FIIs bought shares worth USD 437.32 mln on the first four days of the week, as per Sebi data.

With agency inputs