India’s Rupee edged lower against the greenback as the world’s two most powerful economies in the world are calling a truce on the trade dispute. At the foreign exchange market, the value of Rupee depreciated by 19 paise settling down 0.27% at 70.87 against the US dollar. However, the USD/INR exchange rate was seen trading on Tuesday within a trading range of 70.55 and 70.93.
Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He is expected to sign in Washington a long-awaited phase-one trade deal that will put an end to a conflict that lasted more than 18 months.
The tit-for-tat retaliatory tariff hikes have hurt global economic growth. However, the global economy is not out of the woods yet as some of the US-imposed tariffs on Chinese goods will remain in place despite the trade agreement between the two countries.
Moving forward, India’s Trade Balance data is scheduled to be released at 12:30 UTC. The trade deficit is expected to shrink to -$10.8 billion in December compared to -$12.12 billion previous readings. The slowing global economy driven by the US–China trade war has lead for exports to fall for fourth consecutive months.
The dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of major currencies, was almost unchanged closing up 0.01% at 97.39.
Elsewhere, foreign institutional investors (FIIS) were net sellers of shares in the local equity market worth Rs -205.56 crore; according to the National Stock Exchange of India data published at the end of Monday’s trading session. At the same time, Domestic institutional investors were net sellers of equities worth Rs -642.47 crore.
The domestic benchmark equity index NIFTY 50 reached a new all-time high and settled up 0.59% at 12,363.30 on Tuesday. However, during early Asia trading hours, NIFTY 50 inched lower on some profit-taking and was seen quoted at 12,292.30.
The Indian 10-year government bond yield was seen quoted at 6.64% in morning trade compared with its previous close of 6.67%.
Currently, one US dollar buys 70.78 Rupees, down -0.13% as of 7:55 AM UTC.