The Hungarian forint extended its gains on
Friday and reached an almost 9-month high,
when early in the session the forint firmed to
EUR/HUF 255.3. Again, the regional
sentiment was the main factor behind the
forint’s gains, but there was also some
favourable domestic news.
The Central
Statistical Office revised September’s
external trade figures to EUR 81.2 m, which
is by EUR 34.8 m less than the preliminary
figures had shown. At the same time the
market ignored critical comments from
governor Járai, who said, that the new
convergence programme, which the
government approved on Friday and which
was basically in line with the version from
September 1, only prevents an economic
collapse but fails to invigorate the economy
and Hungary will lag behind its regional
peers.
Surprisingly the forint shrugged off
also US ISM statistics, which were lowerthan-
expected and remained around
EUR/HUF 255.7 for the rest of the session.
Today the domestic economic calendar is
blank and thus the regional development will
be decisive for the forint. According to our
view the forint is currently fundamentally
overvaluated and will correct in the days
ahead. Nevertheless today, the region as
well as global markets will lack important
economic releases, thus we see rather
range trading at the Hungarian FX market.
(CSOB - Investment research)