A lively week culminated yesterday as the IPB's forced administration has become a political issue. The ODS claimed the sale of IPB to CSOB to be a bank robbery that will cost taxpayers billions. He did not elaborate, though, how he got the numbers and how the CNB's action may have worsened the situation. Meanwhile, the deputy minister of finance said that the IPB's loss last year was at least CZK 50 bil. Perhaps, ODS thinks this loss was caused by sinister CNB and other unspecified villains.
The euro was in a weakening mode yesterday again as it slipped from 94.5 cents/EUR to 93.6 cents. The move brought the koruna up against the euro from 35.92 to 35.88. The koruna lost proportionally against the dollar from 38.4 to 38.3 CZK/USD.
Bond market was much quieter than in previous days on Thursday. With strengthening crown and interest rate swaps, bond prices fell again, the downfall was some 30+ bps for longer term maturities, with the exception of MoF 6.40/10 with lack of liquidity. People seem to be waiting for Monday GDP figures, which might push prices even lower.
Current benchmark prices: MoF 6.75/05 100.80-10 (-50 bps), MoF 6.30/07 97.65-95 (-55 bps), MoF 6.40/10 98.40-70 (-25 bps).
(Ondrej Schneider and Dalimil Vyskovsky)