The Indian rupee gained 15 paise at 45.50 against the US dollar in the morning trade on fresh selling of the American currency on persistent capital inflow into stock markets by foreign funds.

At the Interbank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market, the domestic unit opened higher at 45.53/54 per dollar as against Thursday’s closing level of 45.65/66 per dollar.

Forex traders said that banks and exporters preferred to sell dollars in view of persistent capital inflow into equity markets by foreign funds.

However, in New York the US dollar on Thursday gained after four days against the euro as investors assessed weak European economic data as well as a mixed bag of US data.