In see-saw trade, the rupee on Wednesday pared most of its early gains to close down by 24 paise at 55.63 on emergence of dollar buying at the fag-end of trade by importers and banks.
At the interbank foreign exchange market, the domestic unit commenced sharply lower at 55.72 a dollar from Tuesday’s close of 55.39. Soon after it touched an intra-day low of 55.73 as worries over monsoon aggravated.
Later, rupee managed to bounce back to a high of 55.25 on dollar selling by exporters amid a temporary dollar weakness in overseas markets.
However, substantial dollar buying in the last few minutes of trade pulled the rupee down to close at 55.63, a fall of 0.43 per cent.