Rupee loses steam, down 18 paise to 66.40

Snapping its two-day winning spree against the American currency, the rupee today dropped by 18 paise to close at 66.40 on fresh demand for the US dollar from banks and importers despite weakness in greenback overseas.
The rupee resumed lower at 66.32 against yesterday's level of 66.22 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market and hovered in a range of 66.17 and 66.42 per dollar before ending at 66.40 on fresh dollar demand from importers, showing a loss of 18 paise or 0.27 per cent.
The rupee had gained by 42 paise or 0.63 per cent in previous two days.

The dollar index was down 0.13 per cent against a basket of six currencies in the late afternoon trade.
Meanwhile, the RBI fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 66.2930 and euro at 74.8978.
In cross-currency trades, the rupee dropped further against the pound sterling to close at 95.42 from 95.22 yesterday.

However, it recovered against the euro to 75.16 per euro from 75.30 previously.
The domestic currency firmed up further against the yen to 60.48 per 100 yens from 60.64.
At overseas, the British pound eased against the dollar
in early Asian trade, a day after posting its biggest daily gain in 7 years on the back of opinion polls that swung in favor of the campaign for Britain to stay in the European Union.

The dollar made up some lost ground against its Japanese counterpart the late trade, having come close to a 22-month low earlier in the session ahead of the UK referendum on European Union membership later in the week.
Pramit Brahmbhatt of Veracity Financial Services said, "The rupee opened on a negative note with at 67.40/USD against previous close at 67.31/USD. Taking cues from negative domestic equity market, the rupee extended its loss ahead thus by strengthening dollar. Our domestic equity market traded in narrow range with negative bias and closed with a loss of 18 points at 8,220 levels.
Thus to end the trading session, the rupee closed by depreciating 18 paise at 67.48/USD. Trading range for the spot USD/INR pair will be 67 to 67.80/USD.

In forward market, premium for dollar continued to rule easy on sustained receivings from exporters.
The benchmark 6-month premium for November moved down to 188-190 paise from 189-191 paise yesterday and far forward May 2017 contract eased further to 382-384 from 384-386 paise.
Oil prices fell in Asia, snapping two days of gains, ahead of a report on US crude inventories and the British referendum on whether to stay in the European Union.
Meanwhile, the benchmark Sensex ended lower by 54.14 points or 0.20 per cent to 26,812.78.