Czech Republic
The Czech koruna tracked partly other CE currencies (namely the forint) and firmed yesterday. The export driven economy still shows very positive momentum, which was evident not only in yesterday’s release of the May foreign trade, but in today’s release of the May industrial production. The output grew 2.7% m/m and 15.2% y/y. Car and electric equipment makers are primarily behind these strong results. Interestingly, the industrial output stands now above the level, which was visible before Lehman Brother’s collapse.
Although important the koruna and Czech bonds will hardly react to these data, because these two markets will wait for the US payroll report this afternoon.
Year record for Hungarian forint
The forint strengthened about 1%, together with other emerging market currencies, on the back of better US data yesterday. The pair set a new record high for this year at 261.90/€.
The Statistical Office released a strong foreign trade surplus figures for May at €720m, up from €402m from a year-ago. Export grew strong in the month May, suggesting that the dip in output could have been temporary and Hungary’s export will remain strong in the coming months.
Poland
The Polish zloty gained on equity market gains and US dollar weakness moving further below both 50 and 200 day moving average. From a technical point of view it is encouraging that the volumes were growing with recent gains of the Polish currency. Nevertheless one should not overstate these technical signals as the zloty is clearly not in a trending market now. We should wait and see whether the pair is willing to test 3.88 EUR/PLN (Q2 lows) in light of US payrolls and starting earnings season.