Sibiu brokers expect 29,300 lei/dollar this month

The placements in USD have become less profitable than the ones in ROL lately. Over the past few months, the depreciation of the ROL against the USD has lost a lot of its speed, with the dealers and brokers in Sibiu estimating this trend to maintain.

The first futures contracts due in June traded at 29,300 lei/$ in Sibiu this week, which accounts for 1.85% ROL depreciation. The official ROL/USD exchange rate valid for Monday was 28,768lei/$.

“The price the contracts for June were closed at is a realistic one, as the monthly ROL depreciation trend on the spot market reaches 500-600 lei. I don’t think something out of the ordinary will happen this month and cause the USD to gain some ground.

The only unknown things are the inflation in May and the impact of the new increase in the electrical power price announced by the Cabinet for June,” a broker in Sibiu said.

The market is convinced the USD will not go beyond 29,400 lei until the end of the year, which reflects in the level the CALL options for June traded in Sibiu.

The buyers paid 70,000 lei in premiums for a 29,400 lei exertion price, which means they stand to gain only in case the USD goes beyond 29,470 lei. According to the forecasts of the brokers in Sibiu, the ROL will register an average monthly depreciation of 2.06% at the end of the first semester of the year.

The dealers operating on the interbank market agree to the forecasts of the brokers in Sibiu in general, arguing, among others “the rather slow moves on the interbanking market.”

“I don’t think we’ll witness much of a depreciation, as the experience acquired over the past years enables me to say that June-September are summer months and the market is rather numb in such times. If something really big were to happen, it would have happened by now.

It was clear that the National Bank took the action it wanted. A good signal also comes from the money market, where the interests are going down,” a dealer commented.

Although the reduction of the pressure on the exchange rate would have normally been done by keeping interests rather high, it seems that the extremely high liquidity on the market helped blending both goals: slightly declining interests and a ROL/USD depreciation within acceptable limits.