Rupee slips further

Sensing that the rupee has bottomed out, exporters also entered the market and and started selling dollars. This led to a slight strengthening of the rupee to trade at Rs 37.44/45 level.

The RBI8217;s intervention was negated largely by the SBI8217;s aggressive dollar buying. quot;The single largest trader in the forex market was buying dollars on behalf of his clients, especially the oil companies. This is one of the main reasons of rupee8217;s depreciation over the last few days,quot; a dealer said. Towards the fag-end the SBI made its entry to buy dollars at 37.46/48 level. The Reserve Bank made a simultaneous entry to sell dollars at 37.43 level.

In the forward market, six-month forwards turned soft. quot;There was a lot of receiving pressure as exporters were selling forward dollars. Importers are also covering,quot; a treasury head of a foreign bank said. Six month forward closed 20 basis points down from yesterday8217;s level of 6.94 per cent to close at 6.75 per cent today.