Money market changes ruffle exchange rate predictions

The dealers and analysts of the main banks have revised their yearend estimates regarding the RON/EUR exchange rate upwards, following the collapse of RON interests on the monetary market. However, none of them believe the European currency will be strong enough to end the year close to 3.7 RON.

No forecast is set in stone, they point out, since surprises may appear at any time.

“I am not sure even now of how the exchange rate will look at the end of the year and there”s not much time left until then,” the chief dealer of the largest bank in the system, BCR, Adrian Parvulescu, said. Due to the high unpredictability of the market, he and the other analysts say they prefer to “go with the market,” adjusting their forecasts on the go. In the meantime, Parvulescu anticipates the euro will stand at between 3.6 RON and 3.65 RON at the end of the year.

Six dealers and analysts, whose opinions and decisions are shown in the exchange rate and interest on the forex and monetary market every day, discussed the latest developments on the financial market and National Bank”s policy in a meeting organised by Business Magazin weekly last week. An in-depth report of this meeting is available in today”s issue of Business Magazin.

ABN Amro and ING similarly see the euro as ending the year at around 3.6 RON. On the other hand, Bancpost and Raiffeisen analysts put it somewhere lower, below the threshold seen at present.

NBR yesterday announced a benchmark exchange rate of 3.6057 RON/EUR. Most analysts this summer were expecting the euro to close at some 3.5 RON, if not even lower and did not believe the NBR would manage to drive the exchange rate up considering the large inflows of foreign currency. The National Bank slashed RON interest rates in one month, leaving bankers to deal with the surplus RON and discouraging speculators from entering the market, thus creating pressure for an appreciation of the RON. RON interest on the interbank market came to stand at between 1 and 3% per year, so that it is now more profitable to invest in dollars where the interest is higher.

The explanation provided by dealers and analysts for the frequent changes of their own forecasts, as well as for the significant differences between their estimates, concerns the current circumstances, that were hard to imagine several months back.

“When you make a yearend prediction, you start from some developments you regard as plausible. I think no one can be blamed for not imagining that we could come to the point where we have zero or even real negative interests,” explains Radu Craciun, the head of ABN Amro”s research department. He now says he is envisaging an exchange rate of 3.55-3.65 RON/EUR for the end of December.

Still, “the peak (…) will be reached some time in November, and (will) probably (be) around 3.65,” Craciun warns, since this is the time of the year when a foreign currency deficit will be seen on the market, as in the past years, due to the increase in imports.

“I too expect to witness a rather smooth development,” stated Mihai Ion, Treasury Research Manager with Raiffeisen Bank, “maybe towards depreciation in October-November.” Things will be a little different in December, he says, anticipating an exchange rate of “less than 3.60”. ioana.ursu@businessmagazin.ro