Dollar Front and Center Amid Renewed Recession Fears

 

10/02/202303/02/2023%ChangeYTD
Euro / LP16,106.1516,393.50-1.75%903.35%
Euro / Dollar1.07371.0929-1.75%0.84%
NEER Index116.12115.470.56%-31.91%

Lebanese Forex Market

The Lebanese Pound (LBP) remained steady within the official rate of USD/LBP 15,000 by February 10, 2023.

Meanwhile on the parallel market, the Lebanese national currency continued a steady decline against the dollar that has reached an all-time low of 65,500 LBP/USD on Thursday 9th, February 2023. The average Lebanese exchange rate crumbled below the levels of last week and registered a 5.33% drop from last week average of 60,157 LBP/USD to 63,367 LBP/USD during the period between 4 February to 10 February 2023 with a minimum of 58,500 LBP/USD and a maximum of 65,500 LBP/USD by the end of the week February 10, 2023.

As for the Euro/LBP currency pair, the Euro depreciated against the dollar-pegged LBP with the currency pair going from last week €/LBP 16,393.50 by February 03, 2023, to €/LBP 16,106.15 by February 10, 2023. Moreover, the Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) of the Lebanese pound added 0.56% weekly to stand at 116.12 points on February 10, 2023.

International Forex Market

This week, the US dollar traded on a positive territory despite that investors are looking cautious ahead of next U.S inflation data with fears and concerns over the economic slowdown and the pace of the Fed’s rate hikes. Consequently, the index added 1.37% on a weekly basis and traded at 103.05 by Friday February 10, 2023.

The EUR/USD pair extends pullback this week from last week’s high level to register a 1.75% drop on a weekly basis and ended the week at $1.0737 on Friday 10, 2023. The euro currency remains pressured on recession fears as market sentiment dwindles due to widest negative difference between U.S T-bills which fueled recession woes.

Meanwhile, the GBP/USD traded on a negative note this week at $1.2110, 1.05% lower from previous week. Despite Britain’s effort to avoid a recession, the British GDP was unchanged in the fourth quarter following a revised 0.2% decline in the previous one with output in December dropping by 0.5%. These figures indicates that Britain was technically in a recession which leave the BoE attentive on its monetary tightening despite that figures are subjects to revisions.

Concerning the Japanese currency, the Yen recorded gains this week and traded 1.45% higher than last week previous levels as it stood at 130.36 USD/JPY by Friday February 10. Back to China, the Yuan gapped slightly higher against the Dollar ending the pair 0.90% higher compared to last week at 6.80 USD/CNY. As for the Australian dollars, it depreciated by 1.59% on a weekly basis and stands at 0.6943 USD/AUD by Friday 10, 2023 while the Canadian dollars edged 0.58% higher and stood at 1.3429 USD/CAD by the end of week 10, 2023.

Commodities

Gold prices registered a drop for the second consecutive week inversely to the rising dollar this week as well as markets behavior toward expectations of further interest rate hikes from the Fed with attention is on the next inflation data. As such, gold prices dropped by 2.15% at the end of week February 03, 2023, to stand at $1,869.38/ounce.

Crude oil’ prices inched 3.56% higher by the end of the week and traded at $85.13 on Friday 10, 2023 compared to the previous week of February 03.  The upturns in prices this week are driven by Russia’s output cut announcement which it plans to cut March production by 500,000 barrels a day. The outlook for Crude oil is subject to traders’ behaviors towards impacts of sanctions on Russian oil, China’s reopening and the impact of higher interest rates on global growth.

 

 

 

 

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