Headlines
- Czech koruna rallies on the back of weak US dollar
- Fitch upgrades outlook for Hungary’s rating to stable
The Czech crown strengthened at the beginning of the new week and extended previous gains despite weaker-than-expected industrial production figures for April. It becomes clear that the Czech currency enjoys the weakening US dollar, to which it had one of the strongest correlations recently. Also technical factors after the break through the 55-day and 200-day moving averages are playing a role. These effects managed to offset much worse industrial output figures and steadily declining new orders.
For the week ahead we believe an eventual ECB pre-announcement of a July hike could slightly weigh on the koruna. Nevertheless under current circumstances probably positive technical factors and ongoing weakness in the US dollar may continue to push the EUR/CZK to the 24.00 level in the short term.
The Hungarian forint did not react much to the news and remained in a narrow range between 265.00-266.50, which looks to be the new trading range for this week. Rating agency Fitch upgraded Hungary’s outlook to neutral from negative and kept the rating at BBB-. The move came as a surprise and Fitch highlighted the government’s fiscal consolidation plans as the reason behind it. We think that the key will be the 2012 budget, which could insist the agency on more upgrades if the government will target a budget deficit below 3% of GDP without one-off revenues.
The Polish zloty was trading sideways in the last two sessions and remained stuck to 200 days moving average (3,954 EUR/PLN).
Clearly, the zloty is waiting for outcomes of today’s and tomorrow’s monetary policy meeting. We, as well as most of the market, bet on a further 25 bps hike. Nevertheless, FRA’s and WIBOR indicate that such a move might slightly bolster the Polish currency.
On the other hand, revision of a huge “Errors & omissions” line of balance of payments (4% on average in last three years) are due for the end of June and hence still weighs on the sentiment, even though the Monetary Policy Council member Andrzej Raczko tried to play down worries as he said last week that the current account deficit was easily financed with money from EU funds.