Rupee up by 10 paise on sluggish dollar, strong equities

Mumbai, Jan 18 (PTI) The Indian rupee today snapped outof its three-day losing spree and recovered by ten paise toclose at Rs 45.42/43 a dollar, following smart rally in localequities and a sluggish dollar overseas.

Fresh dollar selling by exporters and some banks furtherboosted the rupee.

At the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, thedomestic unit that opened near the yesterday''s close at45.53/54 a dollar, soon after dipped to the day''s low of Rs45.57 against the US currency. The rupee has depreciated by 39paise or 0.86 per cent in the last three day trading sessions.

However, rallying stock market lifted the rupee up to Rs45.40 a dollar before settling at 45.42/43 against the USdollar. The Indian benchmark Sensex today closed 209.80 pointsor 1.11 per cent higher while other Asian markets observed amixed trend.

The dollar index, consisting of six major currencies, wasdown by nearly 0.6 per cent to nearly 8-week low in Londontoday following rise in the euro on hopes for improvement inthe euro zone debt.

However, the rise in the rupee was capped by sustainedselling by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), who pulledout USD 990.55 million from equities in nine sessions sinceJanuary 5. .