The shekel is strengthening against the dollar and against the euro amid volatility on foreign currency exchange markets around the world. The turmoil follows US President-elect Donald Trump's comments about the strength of the dollar and UK Prime Minister Theresa May's speech on a "hard" Brexit.
In morning inter-bank trading, the shekel-dollar exchange rate was down 0.22% from yesterday's representative rate at NIS 3.801/$, and down 0.45% against the euro at NIS 4.071/€.
Yesterday, the Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar representative rate down 0.235% today compared with yesterday's rate at NIS 3.817/$, and the representative shekel-euro rate was set up 0.88% at NIS 4.089/€.
FXCM Israel said this morning, "The shekel-dollar exchange rate continues to push downwards and looks set to test the lower limit of NIS 3.80/$ of the trading band of recent months. Worldwide too the dollar is losing ground after reaching a 14-year high against the world's major currencies at the end of 2016. The dollar index is now at its lowest point since December 5."
"The trigger for the dollar's fall was the comments by President-elect Donald Trump within the context of a trade war with China that the strength of the dollar against the Chinese yuan 'is killing us.'"
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 18, 2017
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