Shekel strengthens in post-holiday trading

The shekel is stronger against the euro and the dollar as the markets reopen after the Rosh Hashanah holiday.

19 September 12 09:23, Nadav Neuman

The shekel is strengthening against the dollar and the euro in morning inter-bank trading today after the foreign currency exchange market was closed in Tel Aviv on Monday and Tuesday for the Rosh Hashanah Jewish New Year holiday. The shekel-dollar exchange rate is down 0.38%, compared with Friday's representative rate, to NIS 3.895/$, and the shekel-euro exchange rate is down 0.28% to NIS 5.094/€.

In international markets, the euro again strengthened against the dollar to $1.308/$ after the dollar hit a fourth-month low against the euro last week.

The Israeli foreign currency exchange market will continue to be influenced by the US Federal Reserve's decision last week to buy $40 billion of mortgage backed bonds with $23 billion of the bonds to be purchased this month.

In Israel the Central Bureau of Statistics announced last Friday that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 1% in August, well above the analysts' expectations of 0.6%. The CPI in September will also be very high so CPI-linked bonds are expected to rise sharply.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 19, 2012

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