Rupee loses 16 paise against dollar in early trade

The Indian rupee turned weak despite a rally in equity markets and dipped by 16 paise to 43.58/59 against the greenback in morning trade today on month-end dollar demand as well as stronger dollar overseas.     

In fairly active trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (forex) market, the local currency resumed at 43.43/46 a dollar from its previous close of 43.42/43 a dollar and later dropped sharply to 43.58/59 a dollar in late morning deals.     

Forex dealers said the rupee came under pressure after a two-day recovery last weekend as oil corporates began buying dollars for their month-end import payments.     

They said strong dollar against the basket of currencies in overseas markets and tight dollar supplies also weighed on the rupee sentiment.     

The rupee, however, is expected to recover from its losses in latter part of the day as the central bank may intervene in favour of the Indian unit, traders said.      

Meanwhile, Indian benchmark Sensex gained another 257 points or 1.77 per cent in the initial few minutes of trading.