The rupee, on Monday, dropped by 19 paise to close at nearly four-month low of 52.73/74 against the U.S. currency on continued capital outflows and month-end dollar demand from importers.
Firm dollar overseas also weighed on the rupee while rally in domestic equities capped the fall to some extent, a dealer said.
At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee opened higher at 52.45/46 from last weekend's close of 52.54/55 and touched a high of 52.43 on firm domestic stocks. However, month-end dollar demand from importers, mainly oil refiners, put pressure on the rupee and it fell back to a low of 52.75. Earlier, it had settled at 52.98/99 on January 5.
The dollar index was up by over 0.15 per cent against a basket of currencies, recovering after a fall last Friday on softer-than-expected gross domestic product data.
