Euro Down as Confidence in German Trade Diminished & US-China Trade Concerns Loomed

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 Sept. 07th, at the same range as last week.

The peg continues to be supported by the Central Bank’s solid foreign assets, which reached $43.56 billion (B) in August 2018.

The dollarization ratio of private sector deposits slightly slid from 68.72% in December 2017 to 68.42% in June 2018.

Over the past week, the Euro depreciated against the dollar-pegged LP going from €/LBP 1,759.55 to €/LBP 1,750.18 this week.

As for the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the LBP, it recorded a 0.12% uptick over the week, to reach 119.39 points.

International Forex Market

The euro depreciated by 0.53% against the dollar over the past week, to reach 1.161 by Sept 7th. This is partly attributed to the strengthening of the dollar, as trade war concerns between the USA and China picked up during the week, prompting investors to favor the greenback over emerging market currencies. In its turn, the Euro was pulled down on the back of diminishing confidence in the outlook of German trade, with recent evidence pointing towards a softening exports volume that drove investors away from the Euro.

Commodities

Gold prices slipped by 0.15% over the week, as they went from $1,202.81/ounce last week to $1,201.02/ounce this week.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *