Barclays sees rupee less exposed amidst uncertainty in US

The Indian rupee declined in the early trade on Friday. It opened lower by 18 paise at 68 per dollar versus 67.82 Thursday.In conversation with CNBC-TV18, Mitul Kotecha of Barclays, said the decline in the Indian currency is in line with other Asian currencies.He said there is a broad generalised selloff among emerging market (EM) assets. This is provoked by a big move in the US. He further said there are worries that US rates are going to be moving higher and will result in some outflows from Asian markets. This is clearly affecting a majority of the region. He also said the rupee may be less exposed. Below is the verbatim transcript of Mitul Kotecha's interview to Latha Venkatesh.Q: What are the levels that you are looking at in the currency? This is a big dollar strength that we are witnessing. What is your view of the dollar-rupee in the next one week?A: This is in line with what we are seeing in most other Asian currencies and the fact is that this is a broad generalised selloff among emerging market (EM) assets and provoked by a big move in the US. Hues and worries that US rates are going to be moving higher and resulting in some outflows from Asian markets. Therefore, that is clearly affecting majority of the region. The rupee, we are actually a bit more constructive in a sense that it is going to be less exposed and other Asian currencies, if anything, we may see more short-term weakness but we are already at level where we would argue oversold and after near term we probably will start to settle down, but we are in uncharted territory in terms of US. We are waiting for policy implication and President Elect Trump waiting to see exactly what that means and so there is a lot of uncertainty out there.Q: Do you track Indian bonds. We are in a bit of an uncharted territory in terms of policy over there, but are you a bond tracker?A: We have been constructive on IGBs for sometime but obviously cannot argue against the fact that we have seen a pull out of Asia bond markets in other countries and India is getting caught up in that to some extent over.