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. As for the average interbank rate it stood at 6.05% in July compared to 6.8% last week.
The Euro depreciated against the dollar-pegged LP, ending the week at €/LBP 1,676.30, compared to last week’s €/LBP 1,689.47. As for the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the LBP, it increased by a weekly 0.43% to stand at 118.70 points.
International Forex Market
The Euro/USD currency pair went from last week’s €/USD 1.1207 to €/USD 1.1120 in the week ending July 26. The euro extended its loss over this week after the European Central Bank opened the door to cutting rates and QE but refrained from imminent action and kept the interest rates unchanged although investors had expected interest cut. However, traders are also positioning themselves for a quarter point rate cut by the Federal Reserve next week, the first in almost ten years.
Commodities
Accordingly, gold prices dropped from $1,440/ounce last week to $1,420.69/ounce in the week ending July 26 2019.