Rupee at near 4-month high; up 15 p Vs USD at 53.13

Forex dealers said sustained foreign fund flows also aided the trading sentiment in rupee's favour.

The local unit commenced lower at 53.40 against the dollar from yesterday's close of 53.28 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market.

It hovered in a range of 53.07-53.42 before settling at 53.13 on fag-end dollar selling, registering a gain of 15 paise, or 0.28 per cent, against the dollar.

"Initially, the rupee was seen depreciating taking cues from the falling euro and the recovery in the US dollar index. Euro fell below 1.3500 yesterday after the news of Spanish Prime Minister's involvement in the corruption scandal," said Abhishek Goenka, Founder and CEO, India Forex Advisors.

Foreign institutional investors pumped in over USD 92 million (Rs 489.27 crore) into local equities today, as per BSE provisional data.

During the Indian Forex market hours, the euro was trading flat at 1.3513 against the US dollar, paring previous losses.

Pramit Brahmbhatt, CEO, Alpari Financial Services (India) said: "The mixed response of global markets helped the rupee convert its losses of first hour of the session into gains towards the end of session.

"The euro and pound, which had lost most to US dollar in previous session, rebounded from their lows after the better than expected UK services PMI numbers were reported. Recovery in European markets today also aided the rupee."

The dollar index, which was up by nearly 0.4

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