The shekel is again weakening today against the dollar and against the euro ahead of the announcement of the September Consumer Price Index today. At midday, the Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar representative rate up 0.085% at NIS 3.513/$ from Friday's exchange rate, and set the shekel-euro rate up 0.207% at 3.872/€. With hopes high for a Brexit settlement in the next few days between the UK and EU, sterling gained 1.485% against the shekel to NIS 4.442/£.
In afternoon inter-bank trading, the shekel weakened further and was up 0.16% against the dollar at NIS 3.519/$ and up 0.2% against the euro at NIS 3.873/€.
Global markets have also been boosted by optimism about US-China trade talks although Turkey's invasion of Syria has put a new cloud on the horizon.
The September Consumer Price Index will be published later today with inflation, currently 0.6% per year, expected to move back towards the Bank of Israel's annual target figure of between 1% and 3%.
In last week's interest rate decision, Bank of Israel Governor Prof. Amir Yaron observed that the Monetary Committee was not unanimous in keeping the rate unchanged and there were good reasons for cutting the rate below 0.25% already. The comments suggested that the rate, which was hiked from 0.1% to 0.25% last November, is likely to be cut back to 0.1% sooner rather than later.
The Bank of Israel also cut Israel's growth forecast for 2020 from 3.5% to 3% due to an expected global slowdown.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 15, 2019
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