Surreal Devaluation For The Lebanese Currency Below 60,000

Lebanese Forex Market

To-date, the Lebanese Pound (LBP) remained steady within the official range of USD/LBP 1,514 to 1,514.5, with a mid- price of USD/LBP 1,514.25 by January 27, 2023.

Meanwhile on the parallel market, the Lebanese national currency continued a steady decline against the dollar that has reached an all-time low on Friday making a new surreal devaluation. The Lebanese currency crumbled below the levels of 60,000 LBP/USD and registered a 24% drop from 51,100 LBP/USD to all-time high levels of 63,500 LBP/USD during the period between 23 and 27 January 2023 with a minimum of 51,200 LBP/USD and an average of 57,377 LBP/USD by the end of the week January 27, 2023.

As for the Euro/LBP currency pair, the Euro appreciated against the dollar-pegged LBP with the currency pair going from last week €/LBP 1,634.88 by January 20, 2023 to €/LBP 1,637.38 by January 27, 2023. Moreover, the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the Lebanese pound slightly decreased by 0.02% weekly to stand at 171.03 points on January 27, 2022.

International Forex Market

On Friday, the US dollar has been under intense pressure as global traders and investors embrace a risk-on sentiment. The index was trading 0.28% lower at 101.891, although yesterday brought a whole positive bundle of US data, with initial claims, GDP and durable goods bringing hopes of a soft landing despite the Fed’s interest rate policy.

The EUR/USD pair has been moving higher over the course of the past month, with the price rising into a nine-month high on yesterday trading session. Notably, the Euro currency has been remarkably consistent despite some ups and downs and ended the week 0.15% higher at $1.0862 on Friday January 27, 2023. Furthermore, the first ECB policy meeting of 2023 will be held next week and would certainly bring a half-point rate hike.

Meanwhile, the GBP/USD has been losing ground in the early part of this week but ended the week slightly higher at $1.2366 up from last week $1.2361. The strong US GDP data for Q4 2022 had a negative impact on the pound, however, traders bought back the losses and kept the pair in balance at the end of the week.

Concerning the Japanese currency, the Yen traded at 129.95 this Friday January 27, 0.24% slightly higher than last week previous 129.64 as the USD/JPY pair reversed some of the losses seen earlier this month despite Tokyo core consumer price index rising to a four-decade high of 4.3%.

Back to China, the fall in growth in the Chinese economy did not prevent the Yuan to maintain its position against the green currency with the pair slightly remaining as last week’s level at $6.7845 by January 27, 2023. In fact, the National Bureau of Statistics has stated that the growth rate of the GDP in China dropped to 3% in 2022, the second lowest since 1974.

Commodities

Yellow metal are moderately down in late trading sessions, following some better-than-expected US economic data that falls into the field of an aggressive monetary policy. In more details, gold prices slightly changed in a negative territory but remained relatively high at $1,930.07/ounce by the end of January 27, 2023.

Crude oil prices recorded a jump by the end of the week and traded 2.62% higher to reach $88.87 on January 27, 2023, compared to the previous week of January 20. The rally in prices seen over the past weeks could be slowed due to raising fears of recession despite optimism about China’s reopening. In fact, OPEC+ is scheduled to hold its JMMC next month and currently the group is keeping its 2 mbpd of cuts in theory until the end of 2023.