The Bank of Israel again intervened in the foreign currency market this morning, buying tens of millions of dollars. The intervention boosted the shekel-dollar exchange rate by 0.53% in morning inter-bank trading to NIS 3.642/$, following a small rise at the opening.
The shekel-euro exchange rate fell 0.57% to NIS 4.812/€, due to weakness on Wall Street yesterday on one hand, and a mixed day in Asian markets today on the other.
In international markets, the dollar-euro exchange rate is $1.32/$ and the dollar-yen rate is ¥84/$.
At the macroeconomic level, Japan today announced that factory orders fell 1.4% in October, for the second consecutive month. Analysts had expected a drop of 1%. Later today, Germany and France will publish their balance of trade figures, and Germany will publish manufacturing output figures.
In Israel, the Bank of Israel will publish foreign currency trading activity in November. Yesterday, it announced that its foreign currency reserves fell to $68.28 billion at the end of November, $1.33 billion less than a month earlier. The decrease was due to a revaluation that reduced the reserves by $1.41 billion, which was partially offset by a $20 million increase due to government transfers from abroad, and a $59 million increase due to private sector transactions.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 8, 2010
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