Rupee trims initial losses, still down by 8 paise

The rupee trimmed its initial losses, but was still down by 8 paise to 66.72 against the American currency in the late morning trade on month-end bouts of demand for dollars from importers.

The rupee resumed sharply lower at 66.90 per dollar as against last Wednesday's closing level of 66.64 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market here.

It hovered in the range of 66.90 and 66.68 before quoting at 66.64 at 1030 hrs.

Meanwhile, the dollar index was down 0.01% at 96.31 against a basket of six currencies in the early trade.

In the overseas market, the dollar mostly ruled stable against its major rivals, but edged up against the yen, after rebounding last week following a series of comments from the US.

Federal Reserve officials who supported the case for more interest rate hikes than markets had anticipated.

The domestic benchmark Sensex was down 0.55% or Rs 138.19 lower at 25,199.37 at 1123 hours.