On Wednesday, the Czech koruna outperformed its peers and on the eve of the Czech National Bank’s (CNB) May meeting gained 0.3 %. Hence, the EUR/CZK pair hit 55 days moving average (25.69) and triggered a verbal response from some foreign players who bet on the central bank’s interventions. We still maintain our view that such bets are overdone.
The CNB will have a new forecast available at its meeting today. However, no significant changes will be made. The growth forecast for 2013 will be worsened only slightly while the inflation outlook within the horizon of the forecast will remain similar to that of February. The latest risks of the inflation forecast were slightly on the downside, and the new forecast may indicate a slightly weaker exchange rate and lower rates (PRIBOR). However, these effects are unlikely to be strong enough to make the CNB intervene against the Czech currency at its current levels.
As far as the fresh PMI figures for April are concerned, it surprised to the downside in Poland while the Czech index came out significantly better than expected (the structure was not that encouraging, though). In Poland, the overall index fell at the fastest pace since July 2011 and particularly worrying is the fact that the decline was driven by deteriorating output indicator which is a part of our Polish Flash leading indicator. Let us recall that another important part of the leading indicator - German Ifo index - lagged behind expectations as well in April.
Therefore, such a development increases risks of additional rate cuts in Poland, which may take place in summer (the NBP will release a new forecast in July).