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, the same as last week.
The peg continues to be supported by the high foreign assets at the Central Bank, which reached $42.9 billion in January 2018.
The dollarization ratio of private sector deposits rose from 65.82% in 2016 to 68.72% in 2017.
Over the past week, the Euro depreciated against the dollar-pegged LP going from €/LBP 1,888.60 last week to €/LBP 1,855.73 this week.
As for the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the LBP, it rose from 108.11 points last week to 108.89 points this week.
International Forex Market
During the week, the euro-dollar fell by a weekly 1.74% to €/$ 1.2310. The report of the Federal Reserve January meeting was published, pointing to the improvement of the US economy and the probability of a more rapid rate increase. In fact, financial markets participants believe that the regulator will tighten monetary policy in March as the Fed also noted that the inflation will probably reach the target level of 2%.
Commodities
On account of a stronger dollar, gold prices fell from last week’s $1,359.66/ounce to $1329.17/ounce this week.