CEE Exchange Rates Report for August 4th-8th

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.  

For the week of August 4th-August 8th, decreases in changes in exchange rate were significant for every currency. The Hungarian forint (green) had the most decline, having just over a -3% change in exchange rate from last week. Meanwhile, the Romanian leu (purple) had the least of the exchange rate changes, although it was still a significant fall at a -2% change. The Czech koruna (orange) and Polish zloty (blue) were mostly following the same trajectory and although separate at times, ended this week at around a -2.5% change in exchange rate. Interestingly, the koruna and forint are usually hand in hand with each other in terms of their trajectory but for this week, the koruna and zloty are surprisingly experiencing similar changes rather than the latter.

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.  

Despite taking a significant dip in exchange rate, Central European currencies are bouncing back to their exchange rates from weeks ago, as currencies have been largely capping at their peaks from the beginning of July. The Czech koruna (CZK) has gone back up around to a 0.048 exchange rate, although most other currencies still require some recovering to get back up to their peaks from July. The Polish zloty (PLN) stays a little under a 0.275 exchange rate and the Romanian leu (RON) stays around a 0.23 exchange rate, with both currencies needing a significant push to get back to the top. The Hungarian forint (HUF) remains at a 0.003 exchange rate despite significant fluctuations in the past month.