Mumbai: The Indian rupee retreated a bit from new two-week lows touched in initial trade on Thursday as exporters stepped up dollar sales around the psychological 46 per dollar mark while US unit stayed steady at morning levels.

At 1:30pm, the partially convertible rupee was at Rs45.99/46.00 per dollar, after falling to Rs46.06 in early deals, which was its lowest since 6 January. It had ended at Rs45.93/94 per dollar on Wednesday.

The euro hit a five-month low on the dollar, ground down by worries about Greece’s deteriorating finances, while the Australian dollar remained on the defensive after strong Chinese data raised the risk of tightening there.

The index of the dollar against six majors was little changed from morning levels. It was up 0.1%.

Dealers said exporters had stepped up dollar sales around the Rs46 per dollar mark helping prevent further losses in the unit. However, stocks were being watched for cues on foreign fund flows.

Indian shares were down 1.4% in line with mostly lower Asian markets.

One-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were quoted at 46.00/10, near the onshore spot rate.

In the currency futures market, the most traded near-month contracts on the National Stock Exchange and MCX-SX were both quoting at 46.0225, with the total traded volume on the two exchanges at about $3.3 billion.