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Dollar dilemma: Inflationary woes to weaken rupee

New Delhi, Aug 8: A strong US dollar as well as domestic inflationary concerns are expected to weaken the Indian rupee during the upcoming weekly trade.

Besides, Reserve Bank’s dollar buying spree is expected to support this trend.

“Rupee is expected to weaken on the back of a strong US dollar and rising inflation concerns,” said Sajal Gupta, Head, Forex and Rates at Edelweiss Securities.

“It is expected to trade between 74.05 to 74.60 with an upward bias.”

Last week, the rupee strengthened to 74.16 per USD due to four bumper IPOs hitting India’s stock markets.

Furthermore, RBI’s reserves swelled to more than $620 billion rising by $9 billion.

“We feel the Indian rupee is likely to digest its recent gains next week against US Dollar as recent economic data coming out of the US is quite strong,” said Devarsh Vakil, Deputy Head — Retail Research, HDFC Securities.

“We expect the rupee to trade between 74 to 74.5 range.”

Besides, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) is slated to release the macro-economic data points of Consumer Price Index (CPI) on August 12.

The retail inflation level for July is expected to remain high, however, a bit lower than June’s level of 6.26 per cent.

“On the domestic front focus will be on the inflation and industrial production number. Expectation is that the number could come in higher and that could keep the gains for rupee capped,” said Gaurang Somaiya, Forex and Bullion Analyst, Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

“For the week, the USD-INR (spot) is expected to trade with a negative bias and quote in the range of 73.80 and 74.80.”