Rupee falls 5 paise to 90.23 against US dollar in early trade

Mumbai: The rupee depreciated 5 paise to 90.23 against the US dollar in early trade on Monday, driven by rising crude oil prices and an unabated outflow of foreign funds.

According to forex traders, a volatile geopolitical situation and concerns over further US tariffs on Indian exports fueled the selling of Indian stocks by foreign institutional investors, even as traders awaited cues from macroeconomic data to be released this week.

At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 90.23 and stayed weaker by 5 paise from its previous closing level.

On Friday, the rupee fell 28 paise to close at 90.18 against the US dollar.

Meanwhile, the dollar index, which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.14 per cent lower at 98.75.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading 0.13 per cent higher at USD 63.44 per barrel in futures trade.

On the domestic equity market front, the 30-share benchmark index Sensex declined 356.49 points or 0.43 per cent to 83,219.75, while the Nifty dipped 94.90 points or 0.37 per cent to 25,588.40.

Analysts said several factors like the development related to Venezuela, Iran and US President Donald Trump's possible move towards Greenland are influencing the sentiment worldwide.

Foreign institutional investors offloaded equities worth Rs 3,769.31 crore on Friday, according to exchange data.

The latest weekly data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday showed India's forex reserves dropped by USD 9.809 billion to USD 686.801 billion in the week to January 2. In the previous reporting week, the forex reserves had jumped by USD 3.293 billion to USD 696.61 billion.