Lebanese Forex Market
The Lebanese Pound traded within the range of $/LP 1,514-1,514.5 against the dollar with a mid-price of $/LP 1,514.25 by the week ending July 27th, at the same range as last week.
The peg continues to be supported by the Central Bank’s solid foreign assets, which reached $44.16 billion in June 2018.
The dollarization ratio of private sector deposits grew from 65.84% in December 2017 to 68.35% in May 2018.
Over the past week, the Euro depreciated against the dollar-pegged LP going from €/LBP 1,755.33 to €/LBP 1,752.62 to this week.
As for the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the LBP, it recorded a 0.03% weekly drop to reach 115.59 points.
International Forex Market
The euro lost 0.15% against the dollar this past week as the ECB’s head, Mario Draghi kept interest rates unchanged and asserted that rates will remain at present levels until at least summer of 2019.
Commodities
Gold prices retreated over the week, from $1,223.63/ounce last week to $1,219.24/ounce this week.