- Indian Rupee (INR) falls after strong gains last week
- RBI meeting on Thursday in focus
- US Dollar (USD) rises after strong NFP report
- US no data due today
The US Dollar Indian Rupee (USD/INR) exchange rate is moving higher on Monday paring some of the losses from the previous week. The pair settled fell -0.5% last week settling on Friday at 74.64. At 11:30 UTC, USD/INR trades +0.07% at 74.69.
As the new week begins, attention is firm on the Reserve Bank of India which is due to meet and give its monetary policy announcement on Thursday. The central bank is widely expected to keep its repo rate steady, although some analysts are expecting the RBI to raise the reverse repo rate (the rate at which it borrows from banks) as part of the plan to reduce surplus liquidity entered int the market across the pandemic.
A poll carried out by Reuters revealed that the RBI is expected to raise the reverse repo from 3.35% to 3.55%. The repo rate is then expected to be raise in the April meeting.
The US Dollar is rising across the board. The US Dollar Index, which measures the greenback versus a basket of major currencies trades +0.09% at the time of writing at 95.57 after booking steep losses across last week.
The US dollar declined last week after Fed policy makers calmed anxieties that the Fed would more too aggressively tightening monetary policy. The calming words came following the Fed meeting at the end of January, which was more hawkish than investors were expecting.
Today the US Dollar is gaining some ground after Friday’s non-farm payroll report smashed forecasts. The report showed that 467k jobs were added in January, well above the 150,000 forecast. Meanwhile December’s payroll numbers were also upwardly revised to 510k, from 199k. The data suggests that the US economy didn’t see a negative hit from Omicron, at least in the labour market.
In addition to a high payroll count, wages also shot higher, rising 5.7% raising concerns over inflation levels and a more hawkish Fed. There is no high impacting US data due today so investors will continue weighing up Friday’s data and Fed expectations.
