Rupee slips 6 paise to 74.84 against US dollar in early trade

Mumbai, August 12 dmanewsdesk:  The rupee depreciated 6 paise to 74.84 against the US dollar in opening trade on Wednesday tracking negative domestic equities and strengthening American currency.

The local unit opened at 74.78 at the interbank forex market, then lost ground and touched 74.84 against the US dollar, down 6 paise over its last close of 74.78.

Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, rose 0.28 per cent to 93.89.

Forex traders said strong dollar, muted domestic equities and weak Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data weighed on investor sentiment.

India’s industrial production declined 16.6 per cent in June on account of disruption in normal business activity following the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic.

The decline in factory output was widespread across the sectors, including manufacturing, mining, power generation, capital goods and consumer durables, as per the data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

On the domestic equity market front, the 30-share BSE benchmark Sensex was trading 153.56 points lower at 38,253.45 and the broader NSE Nifty fell 43.95 points to 11,278.55.

Foreign institutional investors were net buyers in the capital market as they purchased shares worth Rs 1,013.66 crore on Tuesday, according to provisional exchange data.

Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, rose 0.36 per cent to USD 44.66 per barrel.

Meanwhile, the number of cases around the world linked to COVID-19 has crossed 2.02 crore and in India, the number of infections topped the 23-lakh mark.

Source: PTI