CEE Exchange Rates Report for August 18th-22nd

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 18-August 22, CEE currencies generally had a positive increase in change in exchange rate. The Hungarian forint (green) proved to be the most volatile out of the bunch, dropping by 0.5% change in exchange rate in just the span of a day (August 18-19) while also hitting a low of a -0.25% change in exchange rate, tied for the lowest of all other currencies. It ended the week around a -0.75% change in exchange rate, which is also what the Polish zloty (blue) did, although it was a little more streamlined than the forint. On the other hand, the Romanian leu (purple) barely dipped in the negatives and instead stayed a bit calm, finishing the lowest of the currencies with a 0.5% change in exchange rate. Finally, the Czech koruna (orange) had a nearly identical first half of the week to the leu until it soared to a 1% change in exchange rate to end the week, the highest of all the 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.  

For nearly the past two months, both the Czech koruna (CZK) and Hungarian forint (HUF) have generally stayed at the same exchange rate, that being 0.048 and 0.00295 respectively. Despite these similarities however, they have begun to have far less similarities in the recent weeks compared to even a month ago. As for the Polish zloty (PLN) and Romanian leu (RON), they continue to go slightly down in exchange rate within the past two months, currently sitting at a 0.275 and 0.232 exchange rates respectively. However, just like the koruna and forint, the once similar trajectories of the leu and zloty have since separated from each other, as the past few weeks suggest that these Central European currencies have been inconsistent with their relationship to each other.