The Hungarian forint had a mixed session as the EUR/HUF pair tested twice the 265.0 resistance but failed to break below this level yesterday. Generally there were several positive domestic news yesterday, but at the end of day the forint firmed just slightly. The reason, which blocked the forint from more visible appreciation was an ongoing negative development in core bond markets, which was seen especially later in the session.
As concerned positive domestic news they included a successful outcome of a 3Y and 15Y bond auction and releases of the two opinion polls (conducted by Marketing Centrum and Tarki), which showed that the ruling Socialist boosted their support, while the extremely populist opposition Fidesz was loosing. Hence, five independent pollsters have already confirmed in March that the Socialist slightly lead in opinion polls. Although domestic opinion polls have a poor record in predicting election outcomes and the high number of undecided voters makes them even more uncertain, the probability that Fidesz won’t win increases.
Today, the market will digest the balance-of payments data for the fourth quarter of 2005. The released C/A deficit has been much lower than the market consensus (EUR 1.49 bn versus EUR 1.83 bn), which means that the C/A gap for the whole 2005 reached just 7.2% of GDP (while the market expected 7.7% of GDP). This news should obviously support the forint.
(CSOB - Investment research)