CEE Exchange Rates Report for September 22-26

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 September 22-September 26, CEE currencies were quite volatile as they all fluctuated between a positive and negative change in exchange rate. The Hungarian forint (green) was the most volatile of all the currencies as it had the highest and lowest percent change in exchange rate throughout the week with a low of -0.8% and a high of 0.8%, where it ended this week. The Polish zloty (blue) saw itself follow the forint for the second half of the week, falling to a low of a -0.7% change in exchange rate and peaking at 0.75%. The Czech koruna (orange) was a bit similar to the zloty but lower in exchange rate all the way through, falling to a -0.7% change in exchange rate and peaking at a 0.7% change. Alternatively, the Romanian leu (purple) only fell to a -0.4% change while only peaking at a 0.6% change in exchange rate.

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.  

Although most CEE currencies reached record highs last week, it was unfortunately short lived as all have dropped with some even dropping lower than normal. The Czech koruna (CZK) was the only currency that stayed afloat for most of last week on its new exchange rate, although it quickly fell back down to a 0.048 exchange rate. The Hungarian forint (HUF) did not hold its peak nearly as long as its Czech counterpart and slowly fell to a 0.003 exchange rate. The Polish zloty (PLN) suffered the worst of this sudden CEE exchange rate fall as it dropped slightly below a 0.275 exchange rate, which it consistently held just a few months before. The Romanian leu (RON) fell right back to its average exchange rate in August, which was 0.23.