Rupee remains sluggish against dollar

The rupee on Tuesday remained sluggish and was down at 39.5550/5650 against the US currency in late morning deals in line with weak trend in equity markets and firm dollar overseas. In fairly active trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the domestic unit opened lower at 39.63/64 a dollar against yesterday's close of 39.54/55 per dollar. Dealers attributed initial sharp fall in the rupee to bearish equity markets where the benchmark Sensex was down by over 130 points at initial stages. But smart recovery in the index in late morning deals helped the rupee recover some lost ground and was quoted at 39.5550/5650 a dollar. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 2,151 crore in cash segment on December 17 as per provisional figures, which also weighed on the rupee. Meanwhile, the dollar advanced several multi-month highs against its major rivals on Monday on the back of dollar- positive data that weakened US stocks and boosted the yen.