The shekel is strengthening in foreign currency trading in Tel Aviv today against the dollar and against the euro. In early afternoon inter-bank trading, the shekel-dollar exchange rate was down 0.25% at NIS 3.596/$ and down 1.00% against the euro at NIS 4.218/€.
Yesterday, the Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar representative rate today down 0.442% at NIS 3.605/$ from Monday's rate and set the shekel-euro rate down 0.321% at 4.2597/€.
The dollar has recovered somewhat against the euro because of recent positive macroeconomic data, especially the higher than expected number of jobs being created. However, President Trump's difficulties in pushing economic reforms through Congress and his belligerent talk over North Korea have dampened enthusiasm for the greenback.
The run against the Israeli shekel seems to have halted. It began after publication of last month's negative inflation figures, which raised concern that the Bank of Israel would not be able to implement its two planned interest rate hikes next year because of the low inflation environment. The future direction of the shekel could be dependent on the July Consumer Price Index (CPI) figure which will be published next Tuesday.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 9, 2017
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