Rupee snaps four-day gains; seen falling further

By Archana Narayanan

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The rupee snapped a four-day winning streak on Wednesday, weighed down by weaker domestic shares and hurt by broad-based dollar buying from corporates and oil refiners.

The losses came even as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated its commitment to easy policy, echoing dovish comments from Chair nominee Janet Yellen last week.

Some dealers cited the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) intervention via state-run banks to sell dollars in mid-day trades after the rupee fell past 62.65 to the dollar. However, there was no consensus call among traders on the intervention.

Investors are also looking ahead for minutes from the Federal Reserve's October meeting to garner clues about when it might start tapering its monetary stimulus.

"Net dollar inflows into equity and debt markets so far this month have been clearly insufficient to meet the demand from oil companies in the same period, weighing on the rupee," said Hari Chandramgethen, head of forex trading at South Indian Bank.

Chandramgethen sees the rupee weakening further and trading in a range of 62-64 in the near term.

The partially convertible rupee closed at 62.57/58 per dollar, compared with 62.36/37 on Tuesday. It weakened as much as 62.68 during the day. It had gained 2.2 percent in the past four sessions.

A large part of the dollar demand by state-run oil companies, which was diverted to a special window by the RBI in August, has returned to markets recently, adding selling pressure on the rupee.

That is offsetting what has been strong foreign buying of shares, reaching a net $1 billion so far in November, that had helped lift the rupee.

In the offshore non-deliverable forwards, the one-month contract was at 63.09, while the three-month was at 64.19.

(Editing by Sunil Nair)