Indian rupee slips on stock slump, NDF maturities; RBI intervention tempers hit
- Dollar index was a tad higher while the Chinese yuan hit the strongest level in nearly three years
MUMBAI: The Indian rupee closed modestly weaker on Tuesday, weighed down by a drop in local stocks and strong dollar demand from the non-deliverable forwards market, though losses were limited by central bank intervention.
The rupee settled at 90.95 per dollar, down 0.1% on the day, hovering around its weakest level since early February.
The dollar index was a tad higher while the Chinese yuan hit the strongest level in nearly three years as traders bet the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against President Donald Trump’s tariffs will bolster Chinese exports.
India’s benchmark equity indexes, the BSE Sensex and Nifty 50, fell over 1% each with IT stocks slumping nearly 5% as fears over AI-led disruption kept investors on edge.
Traders pointed to broad-based interbank dollar demand and said the pressure on the local unit is set to persist into month-end with NDF contracts worth at least $7 billion due to mature this week.
READ MORE: Indian Rupee edges up as local factors eat into US tariff ruling-driven gains
MUFG expects export-oriented Asian currencies like the Korean won, the Malaysian ringgit and the Chinese yuan to fare better than regional counterparts like the rupee or Indonesian rupiah moving forward.
“The current market concern around the disruptive impact of GenAI is also key, and from a Asia context we already seen some impact on the likes of India’s IT services stocks for example,” MUFG said in a Tuesday note.
Later in the day, the focus will turn to Trump’s State of the Union address. He is expected to discuss his plans for Iran and address the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down his signature global tariffs.
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