- Indian Rupee (INR) holds steady after two days of decline
- Fitch maintained India’s BBB- credit rating
- US Dollar (USD) eases after strong gains this week
- US CPI data is due
The US Dollar Indian Rupee (USD/INR) exchange rate is holding steady on Friday after two straight days of gains. The pair settled +0.15% higher on Thursday at 77.80. At 10:00 UTC, USD/INR trades +0.03% at 77.82. The pair is set to rise across the week after two weeks of decline.
The Rupee is showing resilience after rating agency Fitch raised its outlook on India’s currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) from negative to stable. Fitch maintained BBB- on India, citing a solid recovery from the COVID hit to the economy.
However, Fitch did lower the near-term economic growth forecasts for the year 2022/23 to 7.8%. This is down from 8.5% which had been projected in March. The rating agency cited the inflation impact of rising global commodity prices for dampening the near-term growth outlook.
Fitch’s forecast was ahead of the Reserve Bank of India which sees India’s economy growing 7.2% in the same period.
The US Dollar is steady versus the Rupee but is edging lower versus its major peers. The US Dollar Index, which measures the greenback versus a basket of major currencies, trades -0.06% at the time of writing at 103.25 after a flat finish to trading yesterday.
The US dollar pushed higher again yesterday driven by safe-haven flows as inflation fears and concerns over slower global growth hit risk sentiment.
Today attention is completely focused on US inflation data. Analysts are expecting US inflation to hold steady at 8.3% year on year in May, after falling from 8.5% in March to 8.3% in April. Meanwhile, core CPI is expected to fall to 5.9% down from 6.2% in April and 6.6% in March. T
The data is expected to show that headline inflation remains persistently high and this could prompt the Fed to act more aggressively hiking interest rates for the rest of the year and lift the USD. Cooler than expected inflation could see the USD fall as pressure on the Fed eases.
