Rupee at an all-time low of 50.65/67 vs USD

The Indian rupee on Friday breached its previous all-time low and was quoting at 50.65/67 against the greenback in late morning deals on continued capital outflows and higher month-end dollar demand, besides a strong US dollar in the overseas market.

According to forex dealers stronger dollar abroad gave an opportunity to the foreign banks to buy American currency in local market to sell it in offshore non-deliverable forward contracts for an immediate profits.

In fairly active trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the domestic unit opened lower at 50.69 a dollar from previous close of 50.46/47 and remained stable in late morning deals. Previously the rupee had touched an intra-day low of 50.60 on December 2, 2008.

In the last four trading sessions the Indian currency has tumbled by 85 paise or 1.71 per cent. Sustained selling by Foreign Institutional Investors in equity markets also weighed on the rupee. They pulled out nearly $1.6 billion in the current calendar year so far.

Weakness in the equity markets also put pressure on the rupee. The Indian benchmark Sensex was down by 87 points in early trade, while Asian indices showed a mixed trend this morning.