Rupee hits two-week low on 'sticky' dollar bids, modest intervention cushions

The Indian rupee slipped to its weakest level in a fortnight on Thursday, pressured by clustered dollar demand at the daily reference rate alongside likely outflows linked to overseas debt repayments.

Mild interventions by the Reserve Bank of India, though, helped contain the currency's losses, traders said. The rupee was last at 95.3675 per dollar, down 0.15% from its close at 95.22 in the previous session.

Though the rupee had climbed to an over one-month peak of 94.32 earlier in the month on the back of a spate of regulatory measures and chunky inflows related to a large domestic IPO, its gains have since started to fade.

"Buying is quite sticky and it doesn't seem that will change soon," a trader at a foreign bank said, pointing to heightened dollar appetite from clients across diverse sectors like electronics manufacturers and jewellers.