The shekel is weakening today against the dollar and against the euro. In early afternoon inter-bank trading, the shekel-dollar exchange rate is up 0.43% against the dollar at NIS 3.667/$ and up 0.20% against the euro at 4.211/€.

Yesterday, the Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar representative rate down 0.436% at NIS 3.651/$ from Friday’s rate and set the shekel-euro rate up 0.219% at 4.202/€.

The dollar is strengthening worldwide and against the shekel as investors seek a safe haven currency on concerns about the Italian budget and lack of progress in Brexit talks.

Meanwhile, in Israel the minutes of the Bank of Israel Monetary Committee meeting on the November interest rate revealed that two of the six members wanted to raise the interest rate by 15 basis points to 0.25%. The rate has been anchored at its historic low of 0.1% since March 2015. Even so the Bank of Israel itself has said that the rate is unlikely to be put up until the first quarter of 2019.

Despite the uncertainty on if and when there will be a rate hike, the Israeli currency has been stable for the past six months, trading in the NIS 3.60-70/$ range.

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on October 23, 2018

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