The Indian rupee weakened on Tuesday on customary month-end dollar buying by refiners to pay for imports, but higher share prices helped check its losses. The partially convertible rupee ended at 48.10/11 per dollar, about 0.3 percent weaker than its Friday's close of 47.97/98. The rupee market was closed on Monday for a regional holiday and is shut again on Wednesday for the fiscal half-year book closing.
"There was heavy buying of dollars by refiners. Stock market gains were not enough to offset them," said a senior trader with a foreign bank. One-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were quoting at 48.10/20, close to the onshore spot rate. In the currency futures market the most traded near-month contracts were at 48.10 on the National Stock Exchange and MCX-SX, little changed from Friday's 48.09.