CEE Exchange Rates Report for August 11th- 15th

By: Peter Ort The Quinnipiac University Global Economics Research Team 

CEE Currencies Index 

 Source: Eurostat and own calculations. Exchange rates are inverted to be Euro per local currency (i.e., an increase indicates a stronger domestic currency) and then indexed to 100 at the start of the period.  

During the week of August 11-August 15, currencies changed decently but not nearly as much as last week. The Hungarian forint (green) started the week average with about a 0.4% change in exchange rate but ended up the lowest out of the rest of the currencies with a -0.6% change in exchange rate. Alternatively, the Polish zloty (blue) spiked the highest at a 0.6% change while ending the lowest of all the currencies, with it having a little less than a -0.2% change in exchange rate. The Czech koruna (orange) was yet again similar to the zloty as opposed to the forint, peaking at a 0.5% change while rounding the week with a -0.2% change in exchange rate. The Romanian leu is a bit different from the other currencies, only reaching up to a 0.2% change in exchange rate at the beginning of the week while going as low as a -0.7% change, ultimately ending the week around a -0.6% change like the forint.

Just like last week, the zloty and koruna were much more similar in trajectory than expected and more interestingly, the forint and leu held similar paths despite the leu usually having a unique trajectory from all other currencies.

CEE Currencies Historical Trends 

 Source: Eurostat and own calculations. Exchange rates are inverted to be Euro per local currency (i.e., an increase indicates a stronger domestic currency). The center line is a rolling three-month average. The upper and lower boundaries are the average plus and average minus one standard deviation, respectively, for the same three-month period.  

This week remains to be another week of these four currencies all showing their attempts of rebounding from a short term slump a couple of weeks ago, as opposed to slowly rising in exchange rate, which these currencies have done throughout Spring and all of June. Branching off from last week’s gains, the Hungarian forint (HUF) and Czech koruna (CZK) both see themselves getting back to speed on their peaks for the month, as the forint eyes a 0.003 exchange rate while the koruna is looking at a 0.048 exchange rate. Both the Polish zloty (PLN) and Romanian leu (RON) still have more to recover, but have still largely made up for the deficit, with the zloty consistently staying at a 0.275 exchange rate and the leu a 0.232 exchange rate against the USD.