Rupee inches up, New Zealand Dollar moves higher

Thursday,   22-Jun-2017   12:22 PM (IST)

The Indian rupee has inches up to 64.49/50 levels (12:15 pm) in the afternoon deals after touching the high of 64.46/47 levels as dollar sales by foreign banks, likely for their custodian clients, and strong local shares offset risk-aversion amid sustained weakness in global crude oil prices. So far rupee traded in the range of 64.46-64.5550 levels. Most other Asian currencies are trading mixed against the dollar. The benchmark S&P BSE Sensex extend gains to hit its lifetime high tracking positive trend seen in Asian markets after oil prices climbed off their 10-month lows, while investors also took cues from the minutes of Reserve Bank of India (RBI)'s June policy meeting. As per the technical indicators range for the USDINR pair for the remaining part of the day may be 64.35-64.75 levels. Rupee has an immediate support at 64.54 levels. A breach of the same may see rupee at 64.64 followed by 64.72 and 64.81 levels. On the positive side rupee is likely to face resistance at 64.45 levels and if it is able to break the same then it may gain up to 64.35 levels followed by 64.25 and 64.14 levels. In the forward segment 1mth, 3mth and 6mth annualized premia are currently trading at 4.68%, 4.67% and 4.58% respectively.

The New Zealand dollar moved higher against its U.S. counterpart on Thursday, after the Reserve Bank of New Zealand left interest rates unchanged, while the Australian currency was little changed. NZD/USD gained 0.61% to 0.7251 after the RBNZ held the benchmark interest rate at 1.75%, in a widely expected move, and indicated that it has no plans to hike rates anytime soon. “Monetary policy will remain accommodative for a considerable period,” RBNZ Governor Graeme Wheeler said in a statement. Wheeler added that “a lower New Zealand dollar would help rebalance the growth outlook towards the tradables sector,” but also noted the currency’s recent gains were partly driven by higher export prices. AUD/USD held steady at 0.7555, just off a one-week low of 0.7208 hit overnight. The U.S. dollar showed no reaction to Wednesday’s report by the U.S. National Association of Realtors saying that existing home sales increased by 1.1% in May to 5.62 million units, confounding expectations for a 0.5% drop. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was little changed at 97.17.