Rupee halts 2-day winning run, drops 16 paise to 67.07

Snapping its two-day winning spree, the rupee on Friday dropped by 16 paise to close at 67.07 a dollar on fresh demand for the US currency from banks and importers amid fall in domestic equities.

Good foreign capital inflows failed to restrict the rupee's fall against the dollar, a forex dealer said.

Foreign portfolio investors and foreign institutional investors bought shares worth a net Rs 1,461.26 crore today, as per provisional data of the stock exchanges.

The rupee opened higher at 66.88 per dollar as against the yesterday's closing level of 66.91 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) on initial selling of the US currency by exporters due to weakness of dollar.

However, dropped afterwards to 67.01350 on fag-end demand for dollars before finishing at 67.07, showing a loss of 16 paise or 0.24%.

The domestic currency had gained by 27 paise or 0.40% in the previous two days.

The domestic unit traded in a range of 66.83 and 67.1350 per dollar during the day.

The dollar index was trading lower by 0.12% against a basket of six currencies in the late afternoon trade.

Meanwhile, the RBI fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 67.0655 and euro at 74.6037 today.

In cross-currency trades, the rupee moved down against the pound sterling to finish at 89.78 from 89.51 yesterday and while recouped against the euro to 74.65 from 74.72.

The domestic currency fell against the Japanese yen to 63.34 per 100 yen as against 63.30.