The Bank of Israel is buying large amounts of foreign currency for the third consecutive day.
The shekel is weakening sharply against the dollar and against the euro today. In late morning inter-bank trading, the shekel-dollar exchange rate was up 1.19% from yesterday's representative rate at NIS 3.657/$, and up 0.93% against the euro at 3.943/€. The shekel is weaker today after the Bank of Israel has been buying hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign currency over the past three days. The Bank of Israel has bought at least $700 million in foreign currency this week.
Yesterday, the Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar representative rate down 0.138% compared with Monday's rate at NIS 3.614/$, and the representative shekel-euro rate was set up 0.419% at NIS 3.907/€.
FXCM Israel said in its daily review this morning, "The Bank of Israel has again intervened in foreign currency trading to halt the appreciation of the shekel after intervening on Monday. The second intervention has pushed the rate up and we will have to wait for a few days to see if the Bank of Israel's efforts yield results in weakening the shekel. What is making it difficult is the weakness of the dollar on world markets where it is at a six week low. Only if the shekel-dollar rate is set above NIS 3.65/$ today will it be a signal that the correction upwards might be sustained."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 22, 2017
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