Rupee slips further by 3 paise to end at 68.16 against dollar

Falling for the second day, the rupee today slipped further by 3 paise to close at 68.16 per dollar on the back of sustained dollar demand from importers amidst fall in stock markets.
Persistent foreign capital outflows mainly affected the rupee value against the dollar, a forex dealer said.
However, weakness of dollar in the overseas market restricted the rupee fall against the dollar, the dealer said.
The rupee opened higher at 68.10 per dollar as against last Friday's closing level of 68.13 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market and firmed up further to 68.07 per dollar.
However, it failed to maintain initial gains and dropped to 68.2725 per dollar before finishing at 68.16 per dollar, showing a loss of 3 paise or 0.04 per cent. It has dropped by 34 paise or 0.50 per cent in two days.

Continuing their selling spree, foreign investors today offloaded shares worth Rs 1,310.82 crore on net basis, provisional data by stock exchanges showed.

The dollar Index was trading down by 0.31 per cent against a basket of six currencies during the afternoon trade as "Trumpflation"-fuelled rally paused and political risks came to the fore in Europe.
Meanwhile, the RBI today fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 68.2575 and euro at 72.3530.
In cross-currency trades, the rupee recovered against the pound sterling to finish at 84.14 from 84.66 from last Friday, but fell against the euro to settle at 72.79 as against 72.37. It firmed up further against the the Japanese yen to close at 61.62 from 61.72 per 100 yens earlier.

In the forward market, premium for dollar dropped further due to sustained receivings from exporters.
The benchmark six-month premium for April dropped further to 125.5-127.5 paise from 131-133 paise on last Friday and far-forward October 2017 contract also fell further to 282.5-283.5 paise from 289.5-291.5.
Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex continued its downward march by tumbling 385 points or 1.47 per cent to 25,765.14.
In global market, oil futures rallied after Russian President Vladimir Putin said the country would freeze its oil output, and as fresh discussions ahead of this month's meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries took place.