After three days of rise, the rupee today fell by 5 paise to end at 67.18 on fresh dollar demand from banks and importers in spite of sustained rally in domestic capital market.
Firm equity market failed to restrict the rupee's fall against the dollar, a forex dealer said.
The rupee opened lower at 67.L650 as against the last closing closing level of 67.13 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market and dropped further to 67.1975 before closing at 67.18 per dollar, showing a loss of 5 paise or 0.07 per cent.
The rupee had gained by 32 paise or 0.47 per cent in the previous three trading days.
The domestic unit hovered in a range of 67.1975 and 67.10 during the day.
The dollar index was trading lower by 0.33 per cent against a basket of six currencies in the late trade.
Meanwhile, the RBI fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 67.1471 and euro at 74.4460.
In cross-currency trades, the rupee moved down against the pound sterling to end at 88.27 from 87.19 yesterday and also fell against the euro to 74.46 from 74.20.
The domestic currency firmed up further against the Japanese yen to 64.73 per 100 yens from 65.57.
In overseas markets, the yen weakened against rival currencies in the late afternoon trade, including the dollar today after former Federal Reserve head Ben Bernanke told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Japan has options to further ease monetary policy.
Still, the dollar was broadly lower when other trading was factored in.
On the equity front, the benchmark BSE Sensex climbed over
106 points to finish at 27,247.16, while broder Nifty added 26.55 points at 8,407.20.
Meanwhile, foreign funds continued their uninterrupted selling in Indian stocks and offloaded shares worth a net Rs 627.30 crore yesterday.
In the forward market, premium for dollar fell due to fresh receiving from exporters.
The benchmark six-month premium for June dropped to 143-145 paise from 149-151 paise and the far-forward December 2017 contract also slipped to 284-286 paise from 290-292 paise yesterday.
Crude oil prices traded little changed after a steep overnight rally on the back of bearish US inventories data amid ongoing uncertainty over output cuts by big producers can reduce oversupply.
