August 05, 2014

Trends | Issue #1 - currency swings

Events of the past ten days have shown that the official exchange rate of the national currency may vary within very wide limits - up to 2% during one day

As promised earlier, we are launching a "Trends" project. The format is supposed to be - info-graphics - issue - one to three paragraphs of synthetic information as a food for thought. Facts only, accompanied with cautious forecasts. Comments are gladly welcome. 

Events of the past ten days have shown that the official exchange rate of the national currency may vary within very wide limits - up to 2% during one day. Local minimum of 11.64 for 1 USD was recorded on 23rd of July. 
On 19th of July IMF decided to provide Ukraine with the next stand-by credit tranche. 
On 24th of July, Prime Minister Yatsenuk submitted his resignation, naming Parliament failure to adopt the package of laws proposed by the government, leading to collapse of the state financial system, as a key reason. 
Market reacted to the resignation with slight Fx rate growth, that almost came back to initial level on Friday, August 1, but positions were taken again in full on Monday - an increase of 2% was achieved. 
Our experts attribute the sharp depreciation of Ukrainian Hryvnia to the lack of funding of the military campaign, sharp erosion of tax revenues related to loss of control over eastern Ukraine and with the uncertainty in the issue of future gas supply. 

At the same time, situation that happened on Friday, demonstrates that banks close to the management of the National Bank of Ukraine, could strongly capitalize on such a swing.