• Indian Rupee (INR) eases against a stronger USD.
  • Indian service sector PMI remains strong
  • US Dollar (USD) rises after upbeat jobless claims
  • US NFP, factory orders, ISM non-manufacturing data due

The US Dollar Indian Rupee (USD/INR) exchange rate is rising on Friday after two straight days of decline. The pair settled -0.04% on Tuesday at 74.97. At 10:00 UTC, USD/INR trades +0.19% at 75.11. The pair is set to gain 0.1% across the week after 0.95% gains the week before.

Activity in India’s dominant service sector continued to grow in November thanks to strong domestic demand. The IHS Services PMI eased to 58.1 in November, down from 58.4 in October. The level 50 separates expansion from contraction and the rate of expansion was the second fastest in over a decade.

The data comes following GDP data earlier in the week which showed that the Indian economy grew at 8.4% annually in the July – September period.

The US Dollar is moving higher across the board. The US Dollar Index, which measures the greenback versus a basket of major currencies trades +0.03% at the time of writing at 96.18.

The US dollar moved higher in the previous session following upbeat jobless claims data. According to the data, the number of American’s filing for unemployment benefits rose from last week to 222,000, up from 199,000. However, this was still better than the 240,000 that analysts had been expecting.

Attention now is grimly on the US non-farm payroll, often considered the most important macro data release each month. Analysts are expecting 550,000 news jobs to be added in November, up from 531,000 in October. The unemployment rate is expected to fall to 4.6%, down from 4.7%.

A strong reading could pave the way for the Federal Reserve to taper bond purchases at a faster rate and raise interest rates sooner, which would boost the US Dollar.

After the non-farm payroll release there is still plenty more data to digest, including US factory orders and ISM non-manufacturing PMI.