The Indian rupee is expected to march higher at open on Friday, like its Asian peers, fuelled by the drop in U.S. Treasury yields before the U.S jobs report.
Non-deliverable forwards indicate the rupee will open at 83.35 to the U.S. dollar, compared with its close of 83.47 in the previous session.
The dollar/rupee has been “very bid lately” and “let’s see whether that changes in view of the dollar dump,” an FX trader at a bank said.
“You could very well have it that dip (on dollar/rupee at open) will not run. Today will be a good day to gauge the extent of underlying actual (dollar) demand.”
The Korean won climbed 0.8% and the Indonesian rupiah advanced 0.6%, leading Asia higher.
The offshore Chinese yuan, at 7.1824 to the U.S. dollar, was at its highest in nearly two months, while the Japanese yen was poised for its best week in one-and-a-half years amid central bank intervention.
The dollar index dipped, extending losses amid a fall in U.S. Treasury yields. The 2-year yield was at 4.88%, off 16 basis points of this week’s high.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell‘s pushback on a rate hike, at the post-policy presser, has been largely responsible for the drop in U.S. yields and the dollar. The odds of a September Fed rate cut rose following Powell’s comments.
Powell’s comments “suggest that the USD is likely to be on the back foot in the very near term”, HSBC said in a note.
The focus now is the April U.S. jobs report, due later in the day. Economists expect a 243,000 increase, while the unemployment rate is expected to hold at 3.8%.
