The Indian rupee recovered partly of its early losses but remained 18 paise lower against the US currency in late morning trade today, in sync with a steep fall in local stocks.
The domestic currency bounced after touching a low of 49.20 a dollar and was quoted at 49.00/02 at 1030 hours as select banks heavily bought dollar at the rupee's lower levels.
In active trade at the Interbank Foreign Exchange (forex) market, the rupee resumed sharply lower at 49.15/20 a dollar from its previous close of 48.82/84 and later moved in a range of 48.95 to 49.20 in the initial half-hour of trading.
Forex dealers said a fresh slide in equity markets induced increasing fears of capital outflows from the country and in turn, weighed on the rupee sentiment.
They said the rupee, however, recovered part of its losses as some state-owned banks bought dollars probably at the behest of the central bank after the currency hit a low of 49.20 immediately after resumption of trading.
Indian benchmark Sensex this morning tumbled by about 419 points to a low of 8,951.50 following a meltdown in global markets.
