13.02.2009 - Currency Weekly Brief

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Date: 2009-02-13 17:17

During the last week the US Dollar slightly grew in strength against the Euro, which did not change the markets current outlook. It has to be underlined that this is untypical market behavior, especially with the slump on global stock markets.  This signals that even Secretary of the Treasury Timothy F. Geithners’ speech did not ease investors emotions at this critical time, though the fiscal plan was passed by the Senate.  It is still unknown how toxic assets will be taken over from banks.


Whilst, in the European economy the provisional GDP continued to fall, especially in the German economy where the fourth quarter reading was lower than the previous reading by 2.1%, which is the worst reading since 1987.

As to the EURUSD market, then the breaking of the level of 1.31 will signal an increase at least in the short term, whilst sell signals should be generated after the breaking of the level of 1.27 in the direction of October 2008 lows which would obviously affect emerging market currencies.

The Polish Zloty still stands at a very low price, and not much could signal the return of investor sentiment to the region in the short term.   This is obviously connected with information regarding the foreign trade balance, which signals a significant decrease in export. Owing to this a following decrease in interest rates can be expected, even by 75 basis points. However, the biggest fret is the loss of foreign investments which meaningfully aided the significant increase in the GDP in the past years.


Paweł Nieradka