The Pakistani Rupee is pushing marginally higher on Friday, extending gains against the US Dollar for a second straight session. The Pakistani Rupee advanced by 0.5% versus the US Dollar on Thursday to settle at 160.50 on broad dollar weakness.<\/p>\n
At 10:15 UTC, USD\/PKR is trading -0.05% lower at 160.38. This is at the lower end of the daily trade range of 160.38 \u2013 160.50 in a quiet session. The Rupee has strengthened just 0.1% against the greenback across the week.<\/p>\n
The Pakistan Rupee is trading on the front foot despite inflation easing. Inflation, as measured by the consumer price index slipped to 9.5% in April, extending declines from the previous month as the economy tanks.<\/p>\n
CPI has been falling steadily across the year. Back in January, Pakistan recorded inflation of 14.5%, its highest in over a decade. The rate declined in February to 10.5% and has slipped again in March.<\/p>\n
The State Bank of Pakistan has cut interest rates 3 times this year, from 13.25% to 9% to help cushion the hit from the coronavirus crisis.<\/p>\n
Today is expected to be an interesting day for the US Dollar as investors look ahead to US ISM manufacturing PMI data. Analysts are expecting the data to reveal a sharp fall in manufacturing activity in the first full month of lock down. The Manufacturing PMI is expected to record 36.9 on the index. This is well short of the 50 threshold between expansion and contraction and down from March\u2019s 49.1.<\/p>\n
The manufacturing release comes following Thursday\u2019s initial jobless claims release which showed an additional 3.8 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance in the week ending April 24th<\/sup>. This takes the total to 30 million Americans signing up for initial claims over the past 6 weeks.<\/p>\n Investors will also be watching any developments from the White House closely after President Trump threatened China with trade tariffs in retribution for not containing the virus. Trump also said that he has seen evidence showing that the virus started in a Wuhan lab. Trumps comments have fanned fears that the US \u2013 China trade war could see a second chapter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Pakistani Rupee is pushing marginally higher on Friday, extending gains against the US Dollar for a second straight session. The Pakistani Rupee advanced by 0.5% versus the US Dollar on Thursday to settle at 160.50 on broad dollar weakness. At 10:15 UTC, USD\/PKR is trading -0.05% lower at 160.38. This is at the lower […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163946597,"featured_media":83121,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1863,1381],"tags":[1387,1480,2729,1864,1397,1398],"class_list":{"0":"post-99673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pkr","8":"category-usd","9":"tag-inflation","10":"tag-manufacturing-pmi","11":"tag-pakistan","12":"tag-pkr","13":"tag-us-dollar","14":"tag-usd"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n