The Indian rupee (INR) fell on Tuesday amid dip buying in the US dollar. The pair is expected to remain trading in a tight range amid dollar inflows from importers and potential intervention by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Some analysts said the Reserve Bank of India bought dollars last week to prevent the currency from rising sharply amid continued dollar inflows.
The Indian rupee is likely to get additional support from MSCI balancing inflows. According to forecasts by Nuvama Alternative & Quantitative Research, India will see passive inflows of $1.2 billion into equities after the MSCI quarterly review that begins on February 29.
Later this week, investors will focus on speeches from several Fed officials, as well as U.S. fourth-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) data on Wednesday and the personal consumption expenditures price index (PCE) on Thursday. In India, year-on-year GDP growth and federal fiscal deficit will be released on Thursday. India’s S&P Global Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for February will be released on Friday.