Rupee News

RBI's Rajan Seeks To Calm Rupee Concerns

India's central bank chief Raghuram Rajan on Wednesday tried to calm investors' fears over the rupee amid concerns of a sooner-than-expected tapering by the U.S. Federal Reserve and pointed out the declining core inflation as well as a narrowing current account gap. "There is no fundamental reason for volatility in the value of the rupee," he said.

More...

India's economic growth recovered from a 4-year low in the three months to September, helped mainly by strong improvement in agriculture and construction. Despite the better-than-expected growth, analysts continue to expect the central bank to retain its hawkish stance, given the high inflation. GDP increased 4.8 percent year-on-year, following the 4.4 percent growth in the June quarter.

More...

With Inflation in India at a 14-year high, fears of an interest rate hike by the nation's central bank are ruling high despite the rationale that an upward adjustment to rate could deal another blow to economic activity. The repo rate is expected to be lifted by a quarter point to 8.00 percent at a meeting on December 18. The repo rate is the rate at which the Reserve Bank of India lends to banks

More...

India's central bank unexpectedly adopted a "wait and watch" stance on Wednesday as it assessed merit in waiting for more data, but vowed to take calibrated actions in future. Despite seeing a sharp acceleration in inflation, the Reserve Bank of India decided to leave its key repo rate unchanged at 7.75 percent on Wednesday.

More...

India's forex reserves down by $192 million

---

India's foreign exchange (forex) reserves decreased by $192.8 million to $295.51 billion for the week ended Dec 13, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data showed.

The reserves had soared by $4.40 billion to $295.70 billion in the week ended Dec 6, 2013.

Foreign currency assets, the biggest component of the forex reserves, fell by $191.1 million to $268.56 billion in the week under review, according to the RBI's weekly statistical supplement.

Foreign currency assets had increased by $5.01 billion to $268.75 billion in the previous week.

According to the RBI, the foreign currency assets, expressed in US dollar terms, include the effect of appreciation or depreciation of non-US currencies held in reserve such as the pound sterling, euro and yen.

The value of special drawing rights (SDRs) fell by $1.2 million to $4.44 billion during the week under review.

India's reserve position at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) declined by $0.5 million to $1.90 billion for the week ended Dec 13, 2013.

However, the value of India's gold reserves remained the same. The reserves had come down by 624.2 million at $20.60 billion during the week ended Dec 6, 2013.

India's fiscal deficit has reached 94 percent of the annual budget target in the first eight months of the current financial year, ringing alarm bells and raising concerns that the government will likely overshoot its target of containing the deficit at 4.8 percent of GDP for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014.

More...

India's central bank raised its key interest rates unexpectedly on Tuesday to combat sticky inflation, but sees no further tightening in the near-term if consumer price inflation comes down. The Reserve Bank of India raised its repo rate by 25 basis points to 8.00 percent from 7.75 percent. The repo rate is the rate at which the RBI lends to banks.

More...

The pace of India's economic growth in fiscal year 2013/14 was below expectations, though faster than the previous year, latest official estimates showed on Friday.

More...

India's Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram on Monday unveiled indirect tax reductions to raise domestic consumption, and still affirmed that the budget deficit will narrow this fiscal year. In his interim budget speech for the fiscal year 2014-15, presented ahead of general elections, Chidambaram said the fiscal budget will be contained at 4.6 percent of gross domestic product in 2013-14.

More...

Rupee Rallies the Most in 11 Months after BJP Clinches Majority Seats

By Forexminute - Jonathan Millet | Breaking Forex News | May 19, 2014 11:24AM BST




The Indian rupee surged the most in 11 months, continuing it with its 2.1 percent advance last week after the main opposition party won the elections with more than enough majority, boosting investor confidence.

The rupee surged 0.5 percent to 58.4975 a dollar in mid-morning trade in Mumbai. It rose to a session-high of 58.4750, the highest level since June 18. Last week, the currency had earlier advanced the most in a week since September.

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party clinched 282 of the 543 seats in the parliament, which was more than the required majority of 272 seats, reported the Election Commission. The poll results was the first time a single party had won the majority seats since 1984, fuelling optimism that the incoming government will fast-track economic growth without the burden of divisive coalition politics, reported Bloomberg News.

“The election result was clearly better than we expected,” said Craig Chan, the head of currency strategy at Nomura Holdings for Asia ex-Japan in Singapore. “The outlook for reforms, potential foreign inflows and growth prospects will be even more positive now.”
Most analysts expect the currency to rally to 55 a dollar to 57 per dollar by the end of this year. However, further rises in the currency will be limited by dollar demand from the central bank and oil importers. There are also fears that a stronger rupee may hurt the country’s exports.
The rupee’s one-month implied volatility, which measures the expected shifts in the exchange rate used to assign prices to options, declined 0.31 percentage point, or 31 basis points, to 8.34 percent, the weakest since March 17.