By Nimesh Vora<\/p>\n
MUMBAI, Feb 17 (Reuters) – The Indian rupee is set to open weaker on broad risk aversion and softer Asian peers, while markets \u200clook for signs of central bank action to prevent a break \u200cpast a psychological threshold.<\/p>\n
The 1-month non-deliverable forward indicated the rupee will open in the 90.78-90.82 range \u200bversus the U.S. dollar, having settled at 90.65 on Monday.<\/p>\n
The local currency has traded in a narrow range over the past two sessions, lacking clear directional bias. Whenever the rupee inches higher, sufficient dollar demand from importers and speculative accounts emerges, \u200cwhile declines are met \u2060with caution amid fears that the Reserve Bank of India could intervene.<\/p>\n
The caution stems from the central bank’s surprise dollar sales \u2060before local market opened last week to push rupee higher, prompting expectations that the RBI will lean against any breach of 91.<\/p>\n
Foreign investors returning to selling in Indian \u200bequities \u200bover the past two sessions is adding \u200bto pressure on the rupee. Meanwhile, \u200cbankers continue to flag regular dollar demand from oil companies and NDF-linked maturities.<\/p>\n
“Unless we see a decisive break of sort of key levels, it’s largely flow-driven trade with the RBI in the backdrop,” a Mumbai-based FX trader said.<\/p>\n
“If 91 gives way, we could see a quick extension higher. However, the market is \u200cwary of pushing too hard.”<\/p>\n
The rupee will have \u200bto contend with India’s merchandise trade deficit widening \u200bto a three-month high of $34.68 \u200bbillion in January and the wider-than-expected goods trade deficit driven \u200cby a rise in gold and \u200bsilver imports.<\/p>\n
ASIA STRUGGLES, US \u200bEQUITY FUTURES SLIDE<\/p>\n
Asian currencies and shares dropped. Futures indicated that U.S. equities will open lower when they resume trading on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Markets are awaiting signals \u200blater this week on \u200cthe potential timing of the Federal Reserve rate cuts, with minutes \u200bfrom the Fed’s last meeting and advance U.S. GDP figures due.<\/p>\n
(Reporting \u200bby Nimesh Vora; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Nimesh Vora MUMBAI, Feb 17 (Reuters) – The Indian rupee is set to open weaker on broad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,149600,85,7529,46,21274,149599],"class_list":{"0":"post-295125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dollar-demand","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-indian-rupee","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-reserve-bank-of-india","14":"tag-risk-aversion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}