INDIA MARKETS/RUPEE: INDIA RUPEE Rupee to slide after RBI’s double strike fueled biggest rally in six months. by the Reserve Bank of India last week, with traders now reconsidering how much follow-up the central bank is willing to deliver. The one-month non-deliverable forward indicated that the rupee will open in the 89.50-89.60 range against the US dollar, after rising nearly 1% to settle at 89.27 on Friday. Late in Friday’s session, heavy dollar selling by the RBI fueled the rally, with bankers saying the intervention was aimed at speculators and certainly pushed the currency higher. The rupee climbed from the 90.10-90.20 range to near 89.30 within minutes, triggering stop losses and forcing a quick repositioning. Bankers said the late-session timing strengthened the move and left little room for counterflow. A similar playbook was used on Wednesday, although that intervention came shortly after the market opened. The rupee climbed 1.3% last week, its best performance since June, lifting it marginally into positive territory month-to-date. “If you look at last week, it seems to me that the RBI is thinking about timing to get maximum impact on price action in the near term,” said a currency trader at a bank. “What the market is watching now is whether there is follow through if there is (rupee) weakness again, and how much of the underlying supply-demand imbalance the intervention can address.” Meanwhile, Asian cues offered little direction for the rupee at the start of the week. Most regional currencies were largely flat, while the ⁠dollar index was slightly weaker. Asian cues have played a limited role in the rupee’s recent intraday moves, bankers say, with domestic flows and RBI intervention the dominant drivers. “In the absence of significant flows, USD/INR has a propensity to bounce back after every major intervention,” India Forex and Asset Management said, adding that 88.80 is now a key support for the pair. KEY INDICATORS: ** One month non-deliverable rupee forward at 89.98; country one-month forward premium ‍at 34 paise ** Dollar index down ‍at 98.64 ** ⁠Brent crude futures rose 0.8% at $60.9 a barrel ** Ten-year US note yield at 4.17% ** According to NSDL data, foreign investors bought a net share of $133 mln Indian stock. 18 ** NSDL data shows foreign investors bought a net $30.8 million worth of Indian bonds as of December 198 (Reporting by Nimesh Vora; Editing by ‌Rashmi Aich)