Indian rupee posts best week in 4 months ahead of Jackson Hole speech

The Indian rupee saw its biggest weekly gain in four months on Friday as investors unwound long dollar positions ahead of U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's Jackson Hole speech later in the day.

The partially convertible rupee ended the session at 73.68/69 per dollar, better than Thursday's close of 74.2150. The unit rose 1% on the week, its best since the last week of April.

"There was sudden pressure to cut dollar longs in afternoon trade as investors are not certain the Fed will end up announcing anything concrete on asset purchase taper tonight," a senior trader at a private bank said.

The Reserve Bank of India did not come in too strongly either to prevent rupee appreciation due to small market flows, the trader said, adding that sporadic dollar buying by state lenders could have been on behalf of the central bank.

The market was focused this week on the Fed's signals at the Jackson Hole conference, but analysts now doubt whether the central bank's boss will provide hints about the timing of tapering. [USD/]

Most other Asian currencies and shares, however, weakened as traders cut risk exposure ahead of Powell's speech. [EMRG/FRX]

Investors trimmed bearish bets on most Asian currencies as the dollar weakened on hopes of a temporary pushback in the Federal Reserve's tapering timeline, while sentiment on the Indian rupee turned marginally bullish, a Reuters poll showed on Thursday.

"We expect RBI to remain proactive with its FX intervention strategy to ensure limited volatility in the rupee, and continue to forecast the rupee to end the year at 75 versus USD," Kaushik Das, chief India economist at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a note.

In the domestic bond market, the benchmark 10-year bond yield ended steady on the day but rose 2 bps on the week.

 

(Reporting by Swati Bhat; Editing by Ramakrishnan M.)