Rupee falls to record low against US dollar

MUMBAI: The Indian rupee fell sharply on Monday and touched the 80 mark against the US dollar after the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell's hawkish speech.

At 11 a.m., the rupee was trading at 80.04, as compared to 79.86 close on the previous trading session against the US dollar.

The rupee weakened to a low of 80.14 per US dollar in the first few minutes of trade on Monday as the US dollar index strengthened well past the 109 mark.

The previous lifetime low for the rupee was 80.06 per dollar on July 19.

"The Federal Reserve's Jerome Powell's hawkish speech has sent a bid on the US dollar and sending global equities lower and bond yields up. Restoring price stability will likely require maintaining a restrictive policy stance for sometime. Going ahead, it is clear both from Powell and Fed speakers that further trajectory will be data dependent," said Kunal Sodhani, Vice President, Global Trading Center, Shinhan Bank.

On Friday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled the US central bank is likely to keep hiking interest rates and keep them elevated to tame inflation.

"Restoring price stability will likely require maintaining a restrictive policy stance for some time," Powell said "The historical record cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy."

In a note, CR Forex said: "After the hawkish speech, the probability of Fed's 75 bps hike in September further jumped upto 70 per cent. The market rout led by Powell's speech slashed the fortunes of US billionaires' by $78 billion on Friday. In FX pack, US DXY tested 20-year high, euro and pound fell near their record lows. Asian currencies are trading with a loss of 0.30 per cent- 0.50 per cent. The yuan tested a 2-year low and thus the rupee is about to open at a record low of 80.10. The likely range for the day would be 79.70 to 80.30."

Dollar index, which gauges the the strength of greenback against the basket of six major currencies were at 109.370.

Sodhani added that considering sustainance of high bond yields, DXY can test 109.77 levels, with EURUSD may test 0.9860 levels and GBPUSD moving towards 1.1680 levels.

Brent Crude prices also seems be a bit sticky, unable to sustain at lower levels. Considering the above factors, USDINR may find strong support at 79.50 while a break of 80.06 levels, will impact options sellers hitting their stops and let USDINR pair move towards 80.60 levels.