USD/INR steps back from one-week high amid optimism surrounding China PMI

• USD/INR fails to hold onto recovery gains after China’s PMI.
• The quote seems to ignore downbeat India GDP, doubts over the US-China trade deal.
• RBI monetary policy meeting, trade talks in the spotlight.

With the Asian markets cheering China data, USD/INR pays little heed to the previously published India GDP while taking rounds to 71.70 as Indian markets open for Monday’s trading session.

China’s November month factory activity numbers defy recent doubts over the strength of the world’s second-largest economy. As a result, markets in Asia turn risk-on while also ignoring clues of a delay in the trade talks between the United States (US) and China.

Data published on Friday showed that the growth of the Indian economy during July-September-quarter slumps to the fresh lows in six years to 4.5% QoQ versus 5.0% marked earlier. Fundamentals over the Asian economies have been downbeat off-late, which in-turn pushed global rating agency Moody’s to change its outlook on India’s ratings to “negative” from “stable”, citing concerns the government won't be able to counter stunted economic growth.

Adding to the upside concerns were recently published stories from Axios and China’s Global Times raise doubts over the phase-one deal that was earlier likely to arrive soon. Despite that, the US 10-year treasury yields and Asian stocks, including that from India, are mostly positive.

While the month-start statistics from the US will keep the pair traders busy, Thursday’s monetary policy meeting by the Reserve bank of India (RBI) will be the key event for the pair. The Indian central bank is expected to announce yet another cut to its benchmark interest rates.

Technical Analysis

Pair’s failure to stay strong beyond a two-week-old falling trend line, around 71.75 now, signals the return of last week's low surrounding 71.22.