By Nimesh Vora
MUMBAI (Reuters) – The Indian rupee is expected to inch up at open on Tuesday, helped by the Chinese yuan’s recovery following a significantly below-than-expected daily USD/CNY fix.
Non-deliverable forwards indicate rupee will open at around 81.94-81.96 to the U.S. dollar compared with 82.04 in the previous session.
The “non-directional” moves around 82 will continue with a slightly lower bias (on USD/INR pair), an fx trader said.
“Our expectations of any major move following the opening dip are quite low.”
Given the recent price action, the rupee’s expected near-term range has shrunk to 81.80-82.20, he said.
The offshore yuan climbed 0.3% to 7.2220 to the U.S. dollar in the wake of the People’s Bank of China setting the USD/CNY mid-point at about 100 pips below estimates, potentially signalling that it may be uncomfortable with the pace of the yuan’s decline.
“It is the first time that the fixing showed the downside bias in the recent round of RMB (or CNY) depreciation,” OCBS Treasury said in a note.
“Market will continue to watch for the fixing bias in the coming days to gauge whether there is any intention to slow down the pace of RMB depreciation.”
The offshore yuan before the daily fix had dropped to near 7.25 to the dollar.
Tracking the yuan, other Asian currencies rose. The dollar index dropped to nearly 102.60 while Asian equities were mostly higher.
Investors are looking to assess how much higher U.S. interest rates will rise from here. The Federal Reserve has indicated two more rate hikes, while futures are indicating only one more rate hike.
There is a host of U.S. data this week that could shape expectations around interest rates. The most important of the data points is the core PCE print, which is due on Friday.
KEY INDICATORS: ** One-month non-deliverable rupee forward at 82.05; onshore one-month forward premium at 8 paise ** USD/INR NSE June futures settled on Monday at 82.0375, contract expires today ** Dollar index down at 102.60 ** Brent crude futures up 0.4% at $74.5 per barrel ** Ten-year U.S. note yield at 3.73% ** SGX Nifty nearest-month futures up 0.2% at 18,735 ** As per NSDL data, foreign investors bought a net $24.3mln worth of Indian shares on Jun. 23
** NSDL data shows foreign investors bought a net $371.8mln worth of Indian bonds on Jun. 23
(Reporting by Nimesh Vora; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)
