Lebanese Forex Market:
Demand for the dollar on the Lebanese forex market increased this as the exchange rate rose from last week’s quote of $/LP 1,510.5-1,514.5 with a mid-price of $/LP 1,512.5 to $/LP 1,511.5-1,515.5 with a mid-price of $/LP 1,513.5. Foreign assets (excluding gold) of the Central Bank dropped by a monthly 1.34% to reach $37.74B at the end of October 2015. As for the dollarization rate of private sector deposits, it slid from 65.71% in December 2014 to 64.62% by September this year.
By Friday 20th of November, 2015, 15:30 pm Beirut time, the dollar-pegged LP appreciated against the euro as the exchange rate slid by a weekly 0.60% from €/LP 1,621.17 to €/LP 1,611.37. As for the Nominal effective exchange Rate (NEER), it increased by a weekly 0.05% and by 14.44% since year-start to 168.59 points.
International Forex Market:
The euro registered new losses against the dollar, falling by a weekly 0.60% to €/$ 1.0689. This was mainly on the back of European investors’ negative sentiment, following last week’s terrorist attacks in France. Furthermore, the Euro was held back even more after the head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, stated that policy makers will work on increasing the inflation rate as “quickly as possible”.
Commodities:
The price of gold barely shifted from last week’s quote, ticking up by a slight 0.1% from last week’s $1,083.11/ounce to $1,084.2/ounce.