The Euro Weakens Amid Worrying Data on Factory Orders in Germany

 Lebanese Forex Market

The Lebanese Pound (LP) steadied during the past week within the range of $/LP 1,514 – 1,514.5 against the dollar, with a mid-price of $/LP 1,514.25.

The peg continues to be supported by the Central Bank’s solid foreign assets, which stood at $36.39B by end-June 2019.

The dollarization ratio of private sector deposits increased slightly from 70.62% in Dec. 2018 to 71.22% in May 2019.

The Euro depreciated against the dollar-pegged LBP, going from €/LBP 1,711.83 last week to €/LBP 1,695.34 . As for the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the LBP, it recorded a 0.19% weekly rise to reach 118.07 points.

International Forex Market

In the week ending July 05 2019, the Euro/USD currency pair went from last week’s €/USD 1.1355 to €/USD 1.1246this week. This can be mainly due to the disappointing data of factory orders in Germany which encouraged bets that the European Central Bank will ease policy. In details, new orders to factories in the euro zone’s largest economy fell 2.2% in May, in contrast to a consensus forecast of a 0.4% increase. Moreover, the nomination of Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, to lead the ECB from November has also enhanced speculation of more accommodative monetary policy.

Commodities

Accordingly, gold prices climbed from $1,411.19/ounce last week to $1,413.53/ounce in the week ending July 07 2019.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.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