Indian Rupee Rises To More Than 3-week High Against U.S. Dollar

(RTTNews) - The Indian rupee strengthened against the U.S. dollar in the Asian session on Thursday, in the optimism around the US-India trade agreement.

US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Monday that tariffs on New Delhi's exports to Washington had been lowered from 50% to 18%. The tariffs included penalties for purchasing Russian oil.

Investors in India are anticipating the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) monetary policy statement on Friday. Given that the effects of recent interest rate reduction have not yet been felt by the economy, it is anticipated that the RBI will maintain its repo rate at 5.25%.

The CME FedWatch tool indicates that traders appear certain that the Fed would maintain interest rates in the 3.50%-3.75% range during its policy meetings in March and April.

Against the U.S. dollar, the rupee rose to more than a 3-week high of 90.012 from yesterday's closing value of 90.39.

If the rupee extends its uptrend, it is likely to find resistance around the 89.00 region.

Looking ahead, Construction PMI reports from various European economies and U.K. for January and Eurozone retail sales data for December are slated for release in the European session.

At 7:00 am ET, the Bank of England is set to announce interest rate decision. The central bank is likely to keep its interest rate unchanged at 3.75 percent.

At 8:15 am ET, the European Central Bank (ECB) will announce its interest rate decision. The ECB is widely expected to leave its key interest rates unchanged at 2.15 percent.

Half-an-hour later, the ECB's President Christine Lagarde will speak in a press conference about more clues about the interest rate outlook over the coming months.

In the New York session, U.S. weekly jobless claims data is due to be released.