Mumbai: The Indian rupee on Friday settled marginally lower at 73.07 against the US dollar, marking its fourth loss in a row, even as some positive factors helped the domestic unit stay away from any deep loss.
Investor sentiment continued to get boost from sustained foreign fund inflows into capital markets and improving pandemic situation in the country.
At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened at 72.97 per dollar as against its previous close of 73.06. It hovered in the range of 72.91 to 73.09 during the day before ending at 73.07 a loss of 1 paisa against the US currency.
The rupee has lost 27 paise in the last four trading sessions.
On a weekly basis, the rupee fell 8 paise against the US dollar.
Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, rose 0.27 per cent to 90.31.
Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, rose 0.35 per cent to USD 72.61 per barrel.
“The rupee weakened despite a pick-up in foreign equity inflows as importers took advantage of the fall in the USD/INR spot pair,” said Sriram Iyer, Senior Research Analyst at Reliance Securities.
However, depreciation bias was limited as the dollar and US Treasury yields were weak for this week, he added.
On the domestic equity market front, the BSE Sensex ended 174.29 points or 0.33 per cent higher at 52,474.76, while the broader NSE Nifty rose 61.60 points or 0.39 per cent to 15,799.35.