Rupee falls for 2nd day

Mumbai: The Indian rupee tumbled 31 paise to end at 74.88 (provisional) against the US currency on Monday, marking its second straight session of loss amid a lacklustre trend in domestic equities and strengthening of the greenback overseas.

At the interbank foreign (forex) exchange market, the rupee opened on a negative note at 74.73 per dollar as against its previous close of 74.57. It hovered in the range of 74.71 to 74.92 during the day before ending at 74.88. The domestic currency has lost 34 paise in the two trading sessions to Monday.

"The Indian rupee depreciated after last week of consolidation amid risk-averse sentiments globally. The impact of inflows and lower crude oil prices have been priced in by the market while surging delta virus cases globally raised concerns for recovery. The near-term focus will remain on risk sentiments with strength in dollar index, and spot USD-INR could break the psychological level of 75 in coming days while 74.50 becomes near term support," said Dilip Parmar, research analyst, HDFC Securities. Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, rose 0.27 per cent to 92.93. On the domestic equity market front, the BSE Sensex ended 586.66 points or 1.10 per cent lower at 52,553.40, while the broader NSE Nifty fell 171.00 points or 1.07 per cent to close at 15,752.40. Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, fell 2.24 per cent to $71.94 per barrel. Foreign institutional investors were net sellers in the capital market on Friday as they offloaded shares worth Rs 466.30 crore, as per exchange data.