Rupee off intraday low, Australian Dollar lower

Thursday,   14-Nov-2019   12:23 PM (IST)

The Indian rupee is trading off intraday low at 72.06/07 levels (12:10 pm) in the afternoon deals after touching the high of 72.0250/0350 levels on dollar selling in the market. Rupee touched the low of 72.24/25 levels early trade amid persistent dollar bids by corporates and decline in most Asian currencies. So far rupee traded in the range of 72.0250-72.24 levels. Equity market was highly volatile with benchmark indices oscillating between positive and negative territory. At 12:10 PM, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 40,127, up 11 points, while the broader Nifty50 was at 11,823, down 17 points. As per the technical indicators, range for USDINR pair for the remaining part of the day may be 71.85-72.45 levels. Rupee has an immediate support at 72.18 levels. A breach of the same may see rupee at 72.32 followed by 72.39 and 72.47 levels. On the positive side rupee is likely to face resistance at 71.96 levels and if it is able to break the same then it may gain up to 71.88 levels followed by 71.75 and 71.61 levels. In the forward segment 1mth, 3mth and 6mth annualized premia are currently trading at 3.17%, 3.41% and 3.93% respectively. India’s wholesale price inflation rose 0.16% on year in October, the slowest pace of price gain since June 2016 and easing for a second month, as prices of manufactured products and fuel contracted further, government data showed today. The October reading was higher than a Reuters poll for no change in the index, but eased from 0.33% expansion in September.

The renewed US-China trade tensions, escalating Hong Kong protests and poor macro news from leading Asia-pac economies once again induced a risk-off market profile this Thursday. Markets witnessed a shift in the risk sentiment, with the Asian stocks and Wall Street futures falling back into the red zone while Treasury yields pared back gains. The flight to safety put a fresh bid under the US dollar across its main peers while gold prices also firmed up slightly to trade above $ 1460 levels. Amongst the G10 currencies, the Aussie dollar was the weakest, as a big miss on the Australian Oct jobs fanned RBA rate cut bets. Further, the downbeat Chinese activity numbers exacerbated the pain in the Antipodean, knocking-off AUD/USD to monthly lows just under the 0.68 handle. The Kiwi also tracked the losses in the Aussie dollar and reversed RBNZ-led rally, with NZD/USD downed to near 0.6385 region. The Japanese yen, on the other hand, held the higher ground vs. the greenback despite poor Japanese Q3 GDP data. The prevalent risk-off sentiment dragged USD/JPY lower to hit weekly lows near 108.60. Meanwhile, USD/CAD traded with mild gains just above the 1.3250 level, as the resource-linked Loonie seemed to be somewhat supported by higher oil prices. Ahead of the European open, the EUR/USD pair remains pressured around the 1.10 handle while the GBP/USD pair slips below 1.2850, as markets await fresh economic releases for the next direction.