The shekel strengthened against the dollar and all the world's major currencies except sterling on Friday morning after Japan's central bank boosted world markets with a surprise interest rate cut. The Bank of Japan cut the rate by 10 basis points from zero to minus 0.1%.
At lunchtime, the Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar representative rate down 0.252% from Thursday's rate at NIS 3.951/$, and the representative shekel-euro rate was set down 0.243% at NIS 4.31/€. The shekel-Japanese yen rate was down 1.915% at NIS 3.269/¥ but was up 0.11% against sterling to NIS 5.672/£.
After the representative rate was set, the shekel was stable against the dollar and against the euro in afternoon inter-bank trading, with the dollar rate down unchanged at NIS 3.951/$ and down 0.07% against the euro to NIS 4.313/€.
Over the past week, in which the Bank of Israel kept the February interest rate unchanged at 0.1% and the US Federal Reserve failed to raise interest rates for the second successive month, the shekel has gained 0.5% against the dollar and lost 0.25% against the euro.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 29, 2016
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