Rupee falls by 7 paise against $

Rupee falls by 7 paise against $

MUMBAI, JULY 6: The Indian rupee fell by seven paise to 44.75/76 against the US greenback on heavy dollar buying by State Bank of India (SBI) and other banks at an active interbank foreign exchange (forex) market today. The rupee opened steady at 44.68/6850, came under pressure as the market major player State Bank of India (SBI) started heavy dollar buying in the morning, reportedly for some public sector units.

The Indian unit continued its softening tone during the day as other banks also followed suit after seeing the SBI's activity. The rupee closed lower at 44.75/76, losing seven paise from its previous's day's close of 44.68/6850.

According to dealers, the dollar buying by SBI in the morning prompted other banks also to buy the US currency. Though there were good dollar inflows, the demand was much more than the supply, they added. The market witnessed some foreign institutional investor (FII) outflows, which added pressure on the rupee, they said.

SENSEX DOWN: Share prices suffered a moderate setback on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) following the sharp decline in the US-based Nasdaq exchange. While Sensex lost 26.51 points following the sell-off in infotech shares, select shares like Reliance gained ground.

The 128-point fall in Nasdaq Composite Index affected the trading sentiment on leading Indian bourses like the BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), dealers said. According to marketmen, petrochem major Reliance was the lone scrip which saw considerable gains in the subdued trend. Infotech scrips like Satyam, Infosys and others turned out major losers following the weak overseas trend, they said.

Reflecting the weak trend, BSE Sensex opened at 4862.99 points, surpassing the 4900 mark, touched the day's high of 4908.34 points and a low of 4846.64 points before closing at 4885.60 points, showing a net loss of 26.51 points from the previous close of 4912.11 points. At the NSE, the S&P CNX Nifty index too eased by 9.25 points to 1516.80 points as against the previous close of 1526.05 points.

Local institutions and mutual funds picked up shares of Tata Tea, MTNL and others. Select pharma shares once again reversed the downtrend and notched up handsome gains. RIL closed at Rs 364.10, showing a smart gain of Rs 11.55. Satyam Computer dropped by Rs 62.90 to Rs 3162.90, Zee Tele by Rs 2.85 to Rs 458.40, Grasim by Rs 6.55 to Rs 290.85, GACL by Rs 4.30 to Rs 208.25, ICICI by Rs 9 to Rs 142.80, Infosys Tech by Rs 109.75 to Rs 8454.25, L&T by Rs 5.60 to Rs 281.40, NIIT by Rs 42 to Rs 2247.45 and SBI by Rs 3.35 to Rs 228.40.