Rupee down 6 paise at 53.77 against USD

S napping two-day gaining string, the rupee today lost six paise to end at 53.77 against the dollar, due to fresh demand for the US currency from importers despite firm local equities and persistent capital inflows.

Forex dealers said slight weakness in dollar overseas capped the rupee's losses to some extent.

The local unit opened a tad lower at 53.72 against the dollar from its Friday's close of 53.71 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market.

However, it recovered to a high of 53.63 on the back of rally in local stocks and initial dollar selling by exporters, before falling to a low of 53.96 on dollar demand from importers, mainly oil refiners.

It recovered some ground at the fag end to settle at 53.77, a fall of six paise, or 0.11

per cent.

In last two sessions, it had firmed up by 98 paise, or 1.79 per cent.

"After witnessing sharp gains in the last two consecutive sessions, rupee started depreciating against the US dollar.

Weak euro ahead of the euro-zone meeting and dollar index trading above 80.00 level have contributed to the weakness in rupee," said Abhishek Goenka (Founder & CEO, India Forex Advisors).

Foreign Institutional Investors pumped in $156.7 million into local equities today, according to provisional BSE data.

The BSE 30-stock index, Sensex, improved further by 62.78 points to 20,101.82.

The dollar index was trading nearly flat against a basket of six major global currencies a day before the Bank of Japan (BoJ) announced the outcome of its policy meeting.