By Siddhi Nayak
MUMBAI – The Indian rupee slipped to a near 10-month low on Monday, tracking a stronger dollar which led to losses across Asian currencies, but likely dollar sales by the country’s central bank capped losses.
The rupee ended at 82.9500 to the U.S. currency compared with a previous close of 82.8450.
The unit had fallen to 83.0725 intraday, the lowest since Oct. 20, 2022, but trimmed losses on dollar sales by state-run banks, likely on behalf of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), three traders told Reuters.
“The rupee is broadly taking cues from the dollar index and fundamentals point to a broad strength in the dollar,” said V. Lakshmanan, head of treasury at Federal Bank.
“We think the rupee will find good support around the 83-per-dollar mark as the RBI will likely step in to prevent volatility in the forex market,” Lakshmanan added.
Asian currencies lost between 0.1% to 0.7%, while the offshore Chinese yuan was down to 7.28, its lowest in more than a month on the back of higher U.S. Treasury yields.
The 10-year U.S. yield was at 4.16%, having risen nine basis points on Friday after U.S. producer price inflation in July came in hotter than economists’ expectations.
The rise in U.S. yields came despite a small drop in the University of Michigan survey’s measure of long-run inflation expectations.
The rise in U.S. yields lifted the dollar index to above 103 on Monday, adding to Friday’s 0.3% rise.
USD/INR forward premiums dropped, with the one-year implied yield down four basis points to 1.58%.
Investors are awaiting India’s retail inflation data for July post-market hours for fresh cues.
U.S. retail sales data on Tuesday followed by the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting on Wednesday will also be tracked.
Local forex and money markets are shut on Tuesday and Wednesday for local holidays.
(This story has been corrected to fix rupee’s intraday low to 83.0725 from 82.0725 in paragraph 3)
(Reporting by Siddhi Nayak; Editing by Sohini Goswami)
