| U.S. Dollar Sees Mixed Trading Wednesday
(RTTNews) - The dollar saw mixed trading on Wednesday. The greenback advanced on the yen, bouncing back from recent weakness. However, the currency pushed further lower against the euro. The movement came amid the release of stronger-than-expected fourth quarter productivity data. Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser also spoke Wednesday morning before the release of the economic data. The dollar showed choppy trading against the pound. During the morning, the dollar tested a multi-week low against the sterling, touching 1.9731 on the release of the productivity report. The greenback came off this level in the middle of the day. The dollar declined against the euro throughout New York's Wednesday morning trading, gaining momentum a little before 9 a.m. Eastern Time.
Ruble is becoming cheaper
It is for the first time since February 2006 that the National Bank has raised the dollar/Belarusian ruble exchange rate (per 1 BYR up to 1.41 BYR/USD) at the Belarusian foreign exchange market.
We cant exclude that the increase of the dollar/ruble exchange rate on 2 February is a starting point of the lengthy period of the Belarusian ruble weakening, the Belarusi i Rinok newspaper reports. Such actions seem to be preferable to a one-time devaluation of the ruble.
The decision of the National Bank might have been affected by the totals of the foreign exchange trading at the Belarusian foreign exchange market for January.
According to the BFEM data, the volume of foreign exchange transactions totaled BYR 2289.4 billion in January being 1.3% lower in comparison with the total for December .USD 738.3 million, EUR 74.5 million, RUB 5654.9 million were sold at the exchange.
US bonds, dollar gain after jobs data, gold falls
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury bond prices rose on Friday after government data showed moderate job creation, suggesting the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates steady for some time. The dollar gained as investors focused on upward revisions in the jobs numbers for previous months, while U.S. stocks ended mixed. The Labor Department's nonfarm payrolls report showed that the U.S. economy created 111,000 new jobs in January -- below forecasts for 149,000. But the government also revised upward estimates of job growth in previous month. Overall, the report was in line with a view that the U.S. economy is strong enough to warrant holding the benchmark fed funds rate at 5.25 percent for some months to come. "The headline (jobs number) was lower than expected, but it's all about the revisions as usual.
Get a fix on use of forex, first
The need for massive investments -- $320 billion, or more over the next five years -- in infrastructure to support the 8-10% growth envisaged for the economy is no longer a matter of debate. If we assume that all our public agencies are able to quickly prepare properly structured and designed infrastructure investments of this magnitude (and that is indeed a big assumption, as the capacity required to prepare many projects -- particularly of the PPP type -- is indeed a major constraint within the public sector), one of the big concerns is the ability to finance such massive investment. The massive financing of infrastructure projects assumes an extra dimension since a significant part of it (perhaps $75-100 billion) is to be executed through public partnerships. Even in public investment projects, financing issues need to be critically examined as the government has accepted a fiscal responsibility framework.
|
