Rupee in range, Australian dollar little changed vs. dollar

Tuesday,   06-Nov-2018   12:26 PM (IST)

The Indian rupee is trading range bound and is currently quoted 72.97/98 levels (12:10 pm) in the afternoon deals ahead of the U.S. mid-term elections. Meanwhile, Brent crude edged lower to $72.90. U.S. President Donald Trump said yesterday he wants to “go a little bit slower” when it comes to sanctions on Iran oil because he doesn’t walk to drive up oil prices. The new sanctions took effect yesterday but the Trump administration granted waivers to some of Iran’s biggest oil buyers: China, India, Italy, Greece, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey. The Indonesian rupiah led Asian currencies higher on Tuesday, climbing to over six-week highs. The Chinese Yuan and the Philippine peso also edged higher. Rupee traded in the range of 72.92-73.06 levels so far. Benchmark indices are holding on its gain with Sensex is trading above 35,000, while Nifty is trading around 10,550 levels. As per the technical indicators, range for USDINR pair for the remaining part of the day may be 72.70 -73.20 levels. Rupee has an immediate support at 73.05 levels. A breach of the same may see rupee at 73.12 followed by 73.19 and 73.25 levels. On the positive side rupee is likely to face resistance at 72.91 levels and if it is able to break the same then it may gain up to 72.84 levels followed by 72.77 and 72.69 levels. In the forward segment 1mth, 3mth and 6mth annualized premia are currently trading at 4.12%, 3.98% and 4.12% respectively.

The Aussie dollar was little changed on Tuesday after the Reserve Bank of Australia left its overnight rate unchanged at 1.5%. The Chinese Yuan inched higher as an official of the People’s Bank of China said internationalization of the Chinese currency is market-driven. The AUD/USD pair was unchanged at 0.7211, while the NZD/USD pair was up 0.1% to 0.6652. The RBA said it expected a “gradual pickup” in inflation and GDP will grow at around 3.5% over the next few years. Meanwhile, the USD/CNY pair was down 0.1% at 6.9239 after Huo Yingli, director general of the Monetary Policy Department II of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), said during the China International Import Expo on Monday that Internationalization of China's Yuan is market-driven. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) set the Yuan reference rate at 6.9075 vs the previous day's fix of 6.8976.The U S dollar index that tracks the greenback against a basket of other currencies was up 0.1% at 96.19 as investors awaited the U.S. midterm elections due later in the day. Elsewhere, the USD/JPY pair was up 0.1% at 113.34.