- Indian Rupee (INR) extends gains for 4th day
- RBI foreign exchange reserves inch towards all time high
- US Dollar (USD) rises versus majors on Biden spending reports
- US PCE inflation data due
The US Dollar Indian Rupee (USD/INR) exchange rate is slipping lower on Friday for the fourth straight session. The pair settled -0.03% lower on Thursday at 72.70. At 11:00 UTC, USD/INR trades -0.3% lower at 72.47.
The Indian Dollar continues to trade at multi-month highs. The Indian Rupee is tracing Indian equities higher. The Nifty 50 surged to a record high on Friday after 6 straight days of gains.
Indian assets are being boosted by declining covid cases in India and as investors await a key indirect tax related meeting by India’s finance minister later in the day.
India’s covid numbers posted the lowest increase in 44 days suggesting that the peak has passed.
Attention will also be on the Reserve Bank of India’s foreign exchange reserves which are due to be reported shortly. Driven by sustained foreign direct investment and foreign portfolio investor inflow reserves have been rising for over a month, inching towards all time high of $590.185 million in January.
The US Dollar is trading lower versus the Rupee. However, it is heading higher versus its major peers. The US Dollar Index, which measures the greenback versus a basket of major currencies trades +0.17% at the time of writing at 90.12 as it continues to rebound from the 5 month low hit earlier in the week.
The US Dollar is heading higher following expectations that President Biden will announce a $6 trillion increasing to Federal spending in the budget for 2022. The spending would come in addition to the $1 trillion infrastructure spend. The news sent the US treasury yields higher boosting the greenback.
Attention will now turn to US core personal consumption expenditure (PCE), the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge. Analyst are expecting Core PCI to jump to 2.9% year on year in April. This would be up from 1.8% in March. A strong reading could fuel bets of a sooner move by the Fed boosting the US Dollar.
