Rupee higher, Australian Dollar lower

Tuesday,   18-Jun-2019   12:22 PM (IST)

The Indian rupee is trading higher at 69.79/80 levels (12:15 pm) in the afternoon trade after touching the high of 69.7750/7850 levels helped by a pullback in the dollar index and fall in Brent crude oil prices to below $61 per barrel. So far rupee traded in the range of 69.7750-69.84 levels. At 12:06 PM, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading at 39,074 up 113 points, while the broader Nifty50 was at 11,697, up 25 points. As per the technical indicators, range for USDINR pair for the remaining part of the day may be 69.60-70.10 levels. Rupee has an immediate support at 69.84 levels. A breach of the same may see rupee at 69.90 followed by 69.96 and 70.03 levels. On the positive side rupee is likely to face resistance at 69.77 levels and if it is able to break the same then it may gain up to 69.70 levels followed by 69.63 and 69.57 levels. In the forward segment 1mth, 3mth and 6mth annualized premia are currently trading at 5.12%, 4.59% and 4.47% respectively.

Cautious optimism coupled with broad-based US dollar weakness emerged the main theme in Asia this Tuesday, as the Federal Reserve (Fed) begins its two-day monetary policy review meeting later today, with the outcome likely to be announced on Wednesday. Amongst the G10 currencies, the Yen was the top performer, with the USD/JPY pair down 0.25% to 108.25 levels amid falling Japanese stocks, Treasury yields and broad USD weakness. On the other hand, the AUD/USD pair wilted to fresh 5-month lows near 0.6830 region after the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) June monetary policy meeting’s minutes suggested that further rate cuts are more likely in the months ahead. The NZD/USD bounce stalled just ahead of the 0.65 handle, as traders await the key fundamentals from New Zealand for fresh direction. Meanwhile, the Cable caught a fresh selling wave and refreshed 5-month lows at 1.2514 on the reports that the UK Finance Minster Hammond is set to resign. The Euro, on the other hand, extended the corrective bounce towards 1.1250 against the greenback. On the commodities space, Gold prices on Comex traded mildly bid near 1245 levels, having benefitted from geopolitical tensions, weaker US rates and pre-Fed caution trading. Meanwhile, both crude benchmarks were sidelined amid a lack of fresh catalysts and ahead of the US weekly crude supply reports.