Lebanese Forex Market
The Lebanese Pound (LP) continues to steady within the range of $/LP 1,514 – 1,514.5 against the dollar, with a mid-price of $/LP 1,514.25 this week.
The peg also continues to be supported by the Central Bank’s solid foreign assets, which stood at $37.27B in 2019.
In turn, the dollarization ratio of private sector deposits increased from 70.62% in Dec. 2018 to 73.43% in October 2019.
Over the week, the Euro slid against the dollar-pegged LP, with the currency pair going from €/LBP 1,679.01 last week to €/LBP 1,677.58 this week. In its turns, the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the LP steadied at 117.95 points by the week ending Jan. 03rd 2020.
International Forex Market
The Euro/USD currency pair went from last week’s €/USD 1.1138, to €/USD 1.1128 by Jan 03rd 2020. In fact, the Euro weakened marginally over the week mainly on the back of weak economic data released. In detail, Germany’s PMI showed a contraction in the manufacturing sector while market expectations projected German inflation data to stand at 1.4% in December, from 1.1% in November.
Commodities
International gold prices remained on an uptrend, rising by a weekly 2.5% to $1,548/ounce by Jan.03rd. It’s worthy to mention that gold prices and prices of safe-haven assets may rise further by the end of trading day, mainly on the back of the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.