Rupee pares some losses; closes at 57.51 a dollar

The rupee pared some of the losses and bounced back by 47 paise to close at a one-week high of 57.51 against the US dollar on the back of strong gains in the stock market and exporter sale of dollar.

The rupee opened trading on the interbank foreign exchange market higher at 57.75 a dollar, against the previous day's close of 57.98, and hit the day's low of 57.93 before closing at 57.51 a dollar.

The market witnessed large dollar sales by exporters in the spot and forward markets that helped the rupee regain some lost ground after days of hammering on the forex market. The gains, however, were not enough to prevent the rupee's 0.8 per cent fall during the week.

Large FII outflows worth over Rs300 crore, however, prevented a bigger recovery in the forex market despite a decline in the premium for forward dollar on sustained receipts by exporters.

Benchmark six-month forward dollar premium payable in November declined to 148-150 paise from overnight close of 152-1/2-154 paise.

Far-forward contracts maturing in May also dipped to 298-300 paise from 305-307 paise.

The RBI fixed the reference rate for the US dollar at 57.7410 and for the euro at 77.0225.

The one-month dollar contract in the offshore non-deliverable forward market was at 57.85, while the three-month was at 58.46.

The near-month dollar/rupee contracts on the National Stock Exchange, the MCX-SX and the United Stock Exchange all closed around 57.64 with a total traded volume of $6.43 billion.