The Czech crown eased slightly and Czech swaps declined as CNB Governor Singer brought another dovish signal to domestic markets yesterday. Singer briefly said that Czech interest rates were low due to low inflationary pressures and because the koruna had a tendency to strengthen.
Paradoxically, today’s release of the May producer prices shows that even the strong koruna is unable to curb commodity price pressures, especially in case of food prices.
The Hungarian forint remained stable around the EUR/HUF 265.00 level as neither foreign nor local news had any important influence over the currency. This morning, the May inflation figure has been better than expected at 3.9% Y/Y, down from 4.7% Y/Y in April. Core inflation remained unchanged at 2.7% Y/Y, thus this time lower fuel and vegetable prices were the reason behind the change. The Spanish cucumber story could be behind lower vegetable prices and this may continue to put downward pressure on them. Our model now shows inflation coming down to 3.1% Y/Y by the year-end, which is below the central bank’s February forecast, which will be updated next week.
The Polish zloty stayed more or less unchanged around 3.94 EUR/PLN. It was unmoved by the slightly weaker current account data. A major revision of the Polish balance of payments data is due on June 29 and is expected to show an increase in current account deficit as well as decrease in GDP level for 2010. It can have negative impact on Polish ability to stay with government debt below legal threshold at 55% GDP.
Today we expect inflation figures to be slightly under consensus (4.5% y/y), which could have a negative impact on the Polish currency. Beside that, also mounting tensions in the euro zone peripheries fueled by Greek strike should play against regional sentiment.