BoI buys $250m to fuel shekel depreciation

shekel picture: bloomberg

Tel Aviv looks to the skies

The Bank of Israel unexpectedly purchased foreign currency after reporting that foreign exchange reserves fell in September.

The Bank of Israel unexpectedly purchased $200-250 million in foreign currency this morning, fuelling further the depreciation of the shekel against both the dollar and the euro. In interbank trading this afternoon, the shekel is trading up 1.01% against the dollar at NIS 3.701/$ and up 1.36% against the euro at NIS 4.669/�.

Yesterday, the Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar representative exchange rate at NIS 3.67/$, up 0.714% on last Thursday's rate, and set the shekel-euro representative exchange rate at NIS 4.606/�, up 0.004%.

The Bank of Israel also announced today that foreign currency reserves fell $1.44 billion in September to $86.2 billion from a record $87.64 billion in August.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 7, 2014