The Indian rupee retraced from three-week lows but ended weak on Friday as oil importers' dollar demand, losses in local shares and global dollar strength outweighed support from dollar inflows towards debt. The partially convertible rupee ended at 45.38/39 per dollar, after touching 45.48 - its weakest since December 20 - and below its Thursday's close of 45.245/255. It moved in 45.3250-45.48 band intraday.
"There has been some interest from FIIs into debt and ECB (external commercial borrowing)-related inflows which has prevented the rupee from weakening sharply," said Rohan Naik, head of forex trading at Standard Chartered Bank in Mumbai. One-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were quoted at 45.67, weaker than the onshore spot rate.
In the currency futures market, the most traded near-month dollar-rupee contracts on the National Stock Exchange, MCX-SX and the United Stock Exchange were at 45.55, 45.555 and 45.5575, with the total traded volume on the three exchanges at a moderate $6 billion.