Rupee trades stronger; stock gains boost

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MUMBAI (Reuters) - The rupee continued to trade stronger in the afternoon session on Friday, tracking gains in domestic shares and the dollar's losses against major currencies overseas, especially the euro.

* At 1:15 p.m., the partially convertible rupee was at 46.76/77 per dollar, stronger than Thursday's close of 46.8525/8625.

* Dealers said there was some dollar demand in the market from the Haj pilgrimage committee earlier in the day, which limited rupee gains. Traders expect an outflow of around $50 million to $75 million to the Haj committee during the day.

* The rupee tracked other Asian currencies which rose on a weak dollar overseas and strong equity markets. The index of the dollar against six majors was down 0.1 percent.

* The euro hit a two-month high against the dollar and rose broadly on Friday as improving risk demand prompted European banks to pick up the currency.

* The BSE Sensex (^BSESN : 17833.54 +181.81) was trading 0.8 percent higher, tracking gains in world markets.

* One-month offshore non-deliverable forward contracts were quoted at 46.96, weaker than the onshore spot rate.

* In the currency futures market, the most traded near-month dollar-rupee contracts on the National Stock Exchange (^NSEI : 5352.45 +55.6) and MCX-SX were both at 46.8750, with the total traded volume on the two exchanges at about $2 billion.

(Reporting by Swati Bhat; Editing by Harish Nambiar)