Rupee gains, Australian Dollar lower
Friday,
24-May-2019
12:22 PM (IST)
The Indian rupee gains and is currently trading at 69.59/60 levels (12:12 pm) in the afternoon deals as crude oil prices suffered their worst rout this year amid trade jitters. The benchmark Brent crude price is currently at $68.44 per barrel. Though the election results are positive for the unit in medium-term, traders focus on global factors and have been buying dollars at every dip. So far rupee traded in the range of 69.59-69.80 levels. At 12:05 PM, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 39,123 up 312 points, while the broader Nifty50 was at 11,753, up 96 points. As per the technical indicators, range for USDINR pair for the remaining part of the day may be 69.20-70.00 levels. Rupee has an immediate support at 69.74 levels. A breach of the same may see rupee at 69.86 followed by 69.99 and 70.12 levels. On the positive side rupee is likely to face resistance at 69.55 levels and if it is able to break the same then it may gain up to 69.48 levels followed by 69.35 and 69.23 levels. In the forward segment 1mth, 3mth and 6mth annualized premia are currently trading at 4.09%, 4.10% and 4.09% respectively.
Having witnessed a volatile US session on Thursday, forex today was a quiet affair in Friday’s Asian trading. However, softer risk tones prevailed across the Asian equity markets amid looming concerns over the US-China war and UK political uncertainty. Therefore, the corrective bounce in the USD/JPY pair lost legs at 109.75. The bears regained control and sent the rates back towards the midpoint of the 109 handle, as in-line with estimates Japanese CPI figures also lent support to the Japanese currency. The Aussie witnessed a sharper drop from near 0.6905 to 0.6880 after Westpac called for aggressive RBA rate cuts this year. The bank revised its 2019 RBA rate cut forecast from 2 to 3 now. Meanwhile, the Kiwi traded little changed near 0.6520 levels, stuck in a tight range amid fresh catalysts and risk-off. The Loonie also traded modestly flat, unable to benefit from the bounce in oil prices. Gold prices on Comex consolidated its recent bounce well above the 1280 mark. Amongst the European currencies, the EUR/USD pair capped its corrective rally near 1.1190 while the Cable remained better bid near 1.2660 ahead of the key UK retail sales data.
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