The shekel is weakening sharply against the dollar and euro as the exponential rise in Omicron Covid cases worldwide spooks the world's stock exchanges. In afternoon inter-bank, the shekel exchange rate is up 1.23% against the dollar at NIS 3.153/$ and up 0.78% against the euro at NIS 3.557/€.
On Friday, the Bank of Israel set the representative shekel-dollar rate up 0.290% from Thursday, at NIS 3.181/$, and the representative shekel-euro rate was set 0.581% higher at NIS 3.529/€.
The shekel is weakening as stock markets decline sharply worldwide. The Tel Aviv 35 Index is currently down 1.37% at 1873.77 points. After strong falls in Asia, European markets are also down with the FTSE 100 in London down 1.08% at 7,192.12 points. Futures contracts point to declines on Wall Street later today.
As usually happens when international stock markets are in decline, Israeli institutional investors with major overseas investments sell shekels and buy foreign currency to hedge their positions, thus weakening the shekel.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 20, 2021.
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