CEE Weekly Exchange Rate Analysis : Week of February 4 – February 8, 2019

By: Quinnipiac University's Economics Research Team

Currency Index

Source: Eurostat and own calculations. Currencies are each local currency per Euro and then indexed to be 100 at the start of the week.

The broad trend for the week of February 4 – February 8, 2019, is that the majority of the exchange rates ended the week a bit higher, indicating a miniscule weakening of the currencies in the region relative to the Euro. The Polish zloty (red) weakened the most after gaining some value during the past week. The Hungarian forint (green) and the Czech koruna (blue) also weakened, albeit less than that of the Polish zloty. The only country to see a small strengthening of their currency to the Euro was the Romanian leu (Yellow), which actually began to weaken on the last day of the week.

CEE Historical Trends

Source: Eurostat and own calculations. Currencies are each local currency per Euro. The center line is a rolling three-month average. The upper and lower boundaries are the average plus and minus one standard deviation for the same three month period.

The Polish zloty and the Romanian leu are the currencies to watch this past week. The Polish zloty began the week below it’s lower boundary only to end the week nearly matching its upper boundary mark, ultimately erasing the small improvements made last week due to the .58% weakening that occurred this week with the Euro.

The Romanian leu was the only currency to strengthen in relation to the Euro. From February 4th through February 7th, the leu saw a .16% strengthening, continuing the trend of avoiding its historical level.

The Data: Currency Values Per Euro

Source: Eurostat and author’s own calculations.