Mumbai, Early on Monday, the rupee lost 19 paise to trade at 82.94 against the US dollar as a result of a strong US dollar and a flat domestic equity market. At the interbank foreign exchange, the local unit started out weakly versus the dollar at 82.87, then declined further to 82.94, losing 19 paise from its previous close. The rupee’s value versus the dollar was fixed at 82.75 in the previous session on Friday.
The dollar index, which measures how strong the dollar is relative to a basket of six different currencies, increased 0.04 percent to 105.25. According to forex traders, the poor domestic markets and a strong dollar caused the Indian rupee to decline. The rupee suffered from a rebound in crude oil prices as well. The benchmark for world oil, Brent crude futures, fell 0.38 percent to USD 82.84 a barrel.
The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 159.67 points, or 0.27 percent, at 59,300.22 on the domestic equity market. The NSE Nifty, a more general index, dropped by 46.90 points, or 0.27 percent, to 17,418.90.According to exchange data, Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 1,470.34 crore on Friday, making them net sellers in the capital markets. India’s foreign exchange reserves decreased by USD 5.681 billion to USD 561.267 billion in the week ending February 17, according to data released by the RBI on Friday.
