News – Page 1125

December 12
2007

U.A.E., Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia Cut Rates

The United Arab Emirates decided to cut their bank repository rate by 0.25% to 5.25%; Saudi Arabia decreased its benchmark rate for deposits also by 0.25% to 4.0%; Qatar and Bahrain reduced their deposit rates by the same amount — 0.25% to 4.0%. Kuwait refrained from changing the country’s interest rate, because they’ve already removed their currency’s peg to dollar back in May 2007. This rate change followed the cut by U.S. […]

December 12
2007

Hungary May Abandon Forint Exchange Limits

Hungarian central bank, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB), will probably find it necessary to bring an end to the limits of the euro/forint rate maximum change (which is at 15% currently) after country’s inflation report for November showed 7.1% growth, while the target inflation rate is just 3.0%. Tamas Vojnits, the analyst of OTP Bank, stated […]

December 12
2007

Federal Reserve Lowers Interest Rate by 0.25%

The U.S. Federal Open Market Committee lowered its interest rate for open market operations by 25 basis points to 4.25%, while the discount rate for central bank to banks type of lending lending was also cut by 0.25% to 4.75%. This decision was much of a surprise to economists, because they expected a rate cut by 0.50% in both rates as the sure way to fight the menace of recession and to add some stability to the banking sector. The interest […]

December 11
2007

Dollar Firmer Before Fed Rate Decision

Little time remains before today’s FOMC meeting, which will decide the future target interest rate for the U.S. banks. Dollar gained a some weight against euro on some marginal expectations that Federal Reserve will cut rates by just 25 basis points instead of 50 points predicted by the current futures rate. Financial markets expect not only the interest rate decision, but also the FOMC’s statement on the discount […]

December 10
2007

Intervention Rumor Devalue Rupee

Indian rupee ended the start of the week with falling to 39.41 against the U.S. dollar making it the first rupee’s bearish close after two days of growth. The rupee sellout was caused by the rumor of the Reserve Bank of India intervention in the country’s Forex market. It wasn’t the first time for Indian […]

December 10
2007

Australian Dollar Rises on Global Economy Optimism

Aussie was on a rising edge today on the better investors sentiments, spurred by the recent stock markets growth. Australian dollar gained against both dollar and Japanese yen — its main carry trade counterparts. Going through the upper average range of the previous week for AUD/USD was significantly helped by the yen depreciation, based on the new wave of carry trade entries. If Federal Reserve will decide to lower the interest rate by 50 basis […]

December 10
2007

Chinese Yuan Rushed by Henry Paulson

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is going to visit China again in order to motivate the government to increase the pace of the change in which yuan would appreciate against U.S. dollar and other world currencies. Recently China urged their banks to use the advantage of the globally weak dollar to buy the American assets […]

December 8
2007

South Africa Lowers Foreign Purchases

South African Reserve Bank decreased its foreign currency purchases volume almost by a half after the national currency felt significantly against the U.S. dollar in November. Depreciated rand kept country’s central bank from increasing their Forex reserves at the previous pace. On November 27 USD/ZAR crawled up to the highest value since September 21, showing that recent South African Reserve Bank measures to hold the rand’s fast […]

December 7
2007

Australian Dollar Gained on Lower Risks

Australian dollar gained against other currencies — about 1% against U.S. dollar and more than 1.1% against Japanese yen, yesterday after U.S. President George W. Bush stated that government will act to prevent the further damage from the mortgage financing crisis and to help those already hurt by the crisis consequences. AUD is currently experiencing downtrend which started in the mid October, when the subprime lending crisis […]

December 6
2007

ECB Holds Rate, Trichet Predicts Hike

European Central Bank published its scheduled Monetary policy decisions today, leaving the main refinancing operations interest rate at 4.00%. Jean-Claude Trichet, Central Bank President, commented this decision saying that ECB is ready to fight the pressure of the rising inflation. EUR/USD jumped back almost 1% after being generally bearish this week. Accelerating inflation, which reached its yearly highs last month, makes […]