The Hungarian forint recouped part of its losses as downward pressure on emerging markets’ currencies eased somehow on Thursday. Hence, EUR/HUF dipped by almost one percent and the FX volatility was lower too compared to previous days.
Although the price action was rather result of a positive correction in Central Europe, there were some interesting domestic comments. These were made by the Finance Minister Veres. In his interview for a local commercial radio Veres suggested Hungary could hold a non-binding referendum already in 2007 instead of 2008 on meeting the terms of euro adoption. Veres added the question citizens may be asked could be as follows: “Do you support Hungary meeting the conditions for the adoption of the euro and uphold these criteria permanently?" This might indicate that the Socialist Party decided that the public opinion on the euro would be used as and argument for either radical spending cuts or as an excuse for doing nothing.
Secondly, in the same interview, Finance Minister revealed that the forint weaker than EUR/HUF 260 have not endangered both inflation goals and 2006 budget targets. This comment only confirms our feeling that Hungarian authorities have not got nervous due to the current level of the exchange rate and a weakening would have to be deeper to force them act. Today, the high-yielding forint will monitor a development on core bond markets once again so a rebound of the bond yields in the EMU is clearly a bearish signal. Market volatility will probably increase and EUR/HUF will turn north. Nevertheless, we do not expect a successfully attack on the 268.0 resistance.
(CSOB - Investment research)