MUMBAI: The Indian rupee is expected to decline at open on Monday tracking the move higher on the US dollar and US yields following the jobs report.

Non-deliverable forwards indicate the rupee will open at around 82.40-82.42 to the US dollar compared with 82.3050 in the previous session.

The rupee, over the last two weeks, has managed to recover from near 82.80. A move back to those levels looks unlikely, said traders. It is unlikely that the rupee will see more losses beyond the opening, a spot dealer said.

“There is the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) policy meet on Thursday, and then next week we have the US inflation data and the Federal Reserve meeting,” he said.

“These are decent triggers, but honestly, it is difficult to see how the rupee will come of this range-trading mode.”

The US dollar and near-maturity US yields rose on Friday after data showed that the world’s largest economy added more jobs last month than was expected.

However, the report did not have much of an impact on what the Fed is likely to do when it meets next week.

The odds remained largely in favour of the US central bank opting for a pause.

Indications by Fed officials last week that they preferred a pause combined with the moderation in US wage growth suggested that a rate hike at the June 13-14 meeting would be unlikely.

Risks on Indian rupee seen on the downside in wake of yuan’s plunge

After the US report, we now head into the Fed’s blackout period, with the market favourable to the Fed leaving rates unchanged next week but signalling a bias to hike again, Chris Weston, head research at Melbourne-based Pepperstone said.

Meanwhile, the RBI is scheduled to announce its monetary policy decision on June 8. It had surprised the market with a status quo on rates in its April policy.