Fresh dollar sales by exporters also helped the rupee. However, capital outflows capped the gains, a dealer said.
The rupee resumed stable at the previous closing level of 62.60 a dollar and touched a low of 62.61 at the interbank foreign exchange market. It later climbed to a high of 62.17 as local equities recovered and exporters sold dollars.
The rupee pared its mid-session gains on late dollar demand from importers and fell to settle at 62.46, a rise of 14 paise or 0.22 per cent.
"Yesterday, the current account data was released, which was better than expectations and that helped the rupee to post gains against the US dollar," said Abhishek Goenka, CEO of India Forex Advisors. "It came out at USD 21 billion against expectations of USD 23 billion for the April-June quarter. Today, after the news came regarding US government's shutdown, the rupee reacted positively as the US dollar index fell."
The 30-share S&P BSE Sensex firmed up 137.38 points or 0.71 per cent. Foreign institutional investors sold a net USD 83.55 million of shares yesterday, as per Sebi data.