The Hungarian forint decoupled from a decline experienced by the Turkish lira and firmed basically throughout the whole Wednesday’s session. Mainly leaking information about fiscal measures supported the forint. Chairman of the Alliance Free Democrats (SZDZ) Gabor Kuntze told at a news conference that budget savings (details are to be published on Saturday) would be worth 1 000 bn. HUF for 2006 and 2007. Although today’s session calendar is unusually rich, the main focus should not be on domestic events. There will be 5-year and 10-year government bond auction as well as release of industrial output and preliminary May government deficit.
The release of industrial production should be as usual largely market neutral and since government deficit will be published in late afternoon its implication will show itself as late as on Friday. Thus, today the forint will watch primarily the ECB meeting as well as development on emerging markets. In this respect yesterday’s Turkish 175 bps hike should have a positive impact, on the other hand rising rates in Euro zone could work the other direction. Hungarian forint firmed on leaking details of budget cuts.
(CSOB - Investment research)