Mumbai: The Indian rupee trimmed gains in afternoon trade on Friday as domestic shares briefly turned negative but stronger regional peers and weakness in the dollar versus major currencies supported sentiment.

At 1:55pm, the partially convertible rupee was at Rs45.48/49 per dollar, off the day’s high of Rs45.4225 but still stronger than its close of Rs45.61/62 on Thursday.

Dollar sales by a large corporate had helped the rupee in early trade, dealers said.

India’s annual industrial output growth eased in January, in line with market forecasts, and analysts said it could further weaken with the withdrawal of stimulus measures and an expected rate hike.

Indian shares were seesawing in afternoon trade, failing to provide clarity on the direction of capital flows.

One-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were quoting at Rs45.47, 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 Rs45.5175, with the total traded volume on the two exchanges at about $4 billion.