After a brief overnight recovery, the rupee once again turned shaky and ended lower by 10 paise to 67.20 against the US dollar due to fresh demand for the greenback from importers and banks.
Strong domestic equity markets alongside consistent capital flows even failed to restrict the rupee fall against the dollar, a forex dealer said.
A sharp overnight rebound in dollar value on the back of buoyant macro cues also added to the downward pressure.
The home unit opened lower at 67.15 a dollar from Tuesday's closing value of 67.10 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market here on bouts of dollar demand.
It remained under intense volatility throughout the day and drifted to hit a fresh intra-day low of 67.2525 before ending at 67.20, showing a loss of 10 paise, or 0.15 per cent.
The rupee had gained 10 paise yesterday after a two-day slide.
The RBI fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 67.1720 and euro at 73.9900.
In cross-currency trades, the rupee fell back against the pound sterling to settle at 88.42 as compared to 88.30 yesterday.
The local unit, however, firmed up against the euro to finish at 73.98 from 74.12 and also hardened against the Japanese yen to close at 63.07 per 100 yens from 63.21 earlier.
Meanwhile, domestic bourses witnessed a heavy selling for
the fifth day in a row on the back of sustained profit taking mainly in front-line banking, pharma and auto shares in the face of sluggish global sentiment.
The benchmark Sensex drifted over 66 points to close at 26,307.98, while, broder Nifty shed 21.95 points at 8,082.40.
In the forward market, premium for dollar fell back due to fresh receiving from exporters.
The benchmark six-month premium for May declined to 131-133 paise from 134.5-136 paise and the far-forward November 2017 contract also firmed up to 277-279 paise from 280.5-282.5 paise yesterday.
On the global commodity front, crude prices traded little changed ahead of the year-end holidays, with investors beginning to unwind positions without expecting to take up new ones until the start of 2017.
