Lebanese Forex Market
In the past week, the Lebanese Pound (LP) steadied 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 were further replenished to reach $37.9B by October 2019.
The dollarization ratio of private sector deposits increased slightly from 70.62% in Dec. 2018 to 72.89% in September 2019.
The Euro depreciated against the dollar-pegged LP from €/LBP 1,664.85 last week to €/LBP 1,655.67. As for the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the LBP, it added a weekly 0.41% 118.71 points.
International Forex Market
The Euro/USD currency pair stood at €/USD 1.0983 by November 29th, down from last week’s €/USD 1.1044. The USD has mainly appreciated this week, on the back of talks of a deal to finally resolve the U.S.-China trade dispute, while the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) also revealed the U.S. economy “gathered steam” in Q3 on Wednesday.
Commodities
International gold prices fell from $1,464/ounce to $1,456/ounce by the week ending Nov. 29th.