MUMBAI, Mar 20 (Reuters) – The Indian rupee is set to weaken toward a lifetime low on Friday, pressured by persistently high oil prices, although a pullback from recent highs in crude is likely to limit the extent of losses.<\/p>\n
\n The 1-month non-deliverable forward indicated the rupee will open near 92.90 versus the U.S. dollar, having settled at 92.63 on Wednesday. India money markets were closed on Thursday due to a local holiday.<\/p>\n
\n The dollar\/rupee 1-month NDF rose to a high of 93.80 on Thursday, lifted by a fresh surge in oil prices after Iran retaliated against an Israeli strike by hitting Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City, a key LNG hub, with the damage expected to take years to repair.<\/p>\n
\n Had the level held, it would have implied the rupee opening around 93.30-93.40. However, the NDF pulled back amid the Brent crude cooling off after briefly surging to near $120.<\/p>\n
\n Brent was last at $105.20, retreating after major European nations and Japan signalled willingness to help secure shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, while the United States outlined measures to boost oil supply.<\/p>\n
\n Comments from U.S. President Donald Trump that he had urged Israel not to repeat attacks on Iranian gas infrastructure further weighed on oil prices.<\/p>\n
\n Reflecting volatile oil prices, the dollar index hit a high of 100.30 before slipping back below 99.50. U.S. equity futures pared Thursday’s losses.<\/p>\n
\n While the worst of the oil jolt “appears to have faded, offering a sort of relief”, the broader backdrop remains unfavourable for the rupee, a currency trader at a Mumbai-based bank said.<\/p>\n
\n “The high level of uncertainty on what comes next will keep the pressure on, necessitating RBI (Reserve Bank of India) support.”<\/p>\n
\n Indian equities, which were open on Thursday, slumped 3%. Foreign investors pulled out more than $800 million from equities, per preliminary data, extending the outflows that began after the war erupted.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Nimesh Vora; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)<\/p>\n
\n By Nimesh Vora<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MUMBAI, Mar 20 (Reuters) – The Indian rupee is set to weaken toward a lifetime low on Friday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60,123],"class_list":["post-355631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-markets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}