Rupee recovery likely to be challenged by importers, Fed view
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The Indian rupee is expected to open little changed on Tuesday on expectations that importers will take advantage of the mini recovery on the currency and bets that Federal Reserve rate cuts are not imminent.
Non-deliverable forwards indicate the rupee will open broadly unchanged from 83.3625 in the previous session. The local currency has managed to recover from the all-time low of 83.5750, largely on the back of intervention by the Reserve Bank of India.
"Having pulled back, reckon (USD/INR) to be more or less quiet here. You would expect importers to use this dip, more so when you consider the Fed outlook on rate cuts," an fx trader at a bank said.
He expects USD/INR to be supported at 83.30 and a break below that is unlikely only after the key U.S. data is released later this week.
Asian currencies were mostly rangebound while equities were a shade lower. Oil prices inched up after having dipped on Monday amid abating worries over the Iran-Israel confrontation.
The focus of investors is now back on when the Federal Reserve is likely to begin cutting interest rates and how many times they will deliver cuts this year. Higher inflation and robust growth had prompted interest rate futures to prices in less than two rate cuts this year.
The slew of U.S. data this week will help in gauging what the Fed is likely to do, the most important of which is the first quarter GDP data on Thursday and the March core PCE reading the next day.
Consensus estimates for the core PCE is a 0.3% month-on-month rise.
"Idiosyncratic factors kept inflation elevated over January-February. If these persist into the March data, indicating stickiness, the Fed's wait for greater certainty (on inflation) would extend," ANZ Bank said in a note.
KEY INDICATORS: ** One-month non-deliverable rupee forward at 83.42; onshore one-month forward premium at 7 paise ** Dollar index down at 106.06 ** Brent crude futures up 0.4% at $87.3 per barrel ** Ten-year U.S. note yield at 4.62%
** As per NSDL data, foreign investors bought a net $92.5mln worth of Indian shares on Apr. 19
** NSDL data shows foreign investors sold a net $98.1mln worth of Indian bonds on Apr. 19
