Lebanese Forex Market
The Lebanese Pound traded within the range of $/LP 1,513.75 -1,514.25 against the dollar with a mid-price of $/LP 1,514, as it did in the previous two weeks.
The peg continues to be supported by the Central Bank’s solid foreign assets, which reached $43.4 billion in March 2018.
The dollarization ratio of private sector deposits grew from 65.84% in December 2017 to 68.44% in January 2018.
Over the past two weeks, the Euro appreciated against the dollar-pegged LP going from €/LBP 1,858.21 to €/LBP 1,859.50 this week.
As for the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the LBP, it rose from 109.31 points on March, 29 to 109.81 points this week.
International Forex Market
U.S. President Donald Trump warned Russia of imminent military action in Syria over a suspected poison gas attack. As such, The U.S. dollar weakened during the past two weeks, as uncertainty over possible Western military action. As such, the euro slightly increased against the dollar during the mentioned period as shown by the 0.07% rise in the euro-dollar from €/$ 1.2326 to €/$ 1.2335 this week.
Commodities
Gold prices rose over the past two weeks from $1,324.23/ounce to $1,340.76/ounce this week.