Rupee weakens on lower stocks, strong dollar

The rupee weakened on Thursday, in line with domestic stocks and weighed down by a strong dollar overseas.    

* At 2:15 p.m., the partially convertible rupee was at 46.275285 per dollar, after briefly touching 46.31. It had closed at 46.1112 on Wednesday.                                           

* Traders said that if the 46.30 barrier was broken, the rupee could go to 46.50 followed by 46.80 per dollar in case stocks slid further.                                          

* The BSE Sensex was trading down 0.75%.  

* The index of the dollar against six majors was up 0.33%

* The Philippine peso and most other Asian currencies fell on Thursday due to the dollar's broad strength and weakness in regional stocks, prompting Indonesia's central bank to intervene to stem the slide in the rupiah.                                          

* The dollar rose towards a seven-month high against a basket of currencies on Thursday after the International Monetary Fund said it planned to sell more gold in the market, pushing down bullion prices and commodity-linked currencies.                                           

* One-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were quoting at 46.2730, little changed from the onshore spot rate.       

* In the currency futures market, the most traded near-month dollar-rupee contracts on the National Stock Exchange and MCX-SX were both quoting at 46.2875, with the total traded volume on the two exchanges at about $3.27 billion.