The National Bank reduced the sale of foreign currency on the interbank market last week by $221.77 million, or 41.4% – to $314.4 million, according to the regulator’s statistics on its website.
According to it, the National Bank even bought $10 million on the market last week, the last time it was in early March, while in general, since the beginning of the year, the purchase amounted to $33.5 million against $10.24 billion of sales.
Thus, net foreign exchange interventions of the NBU over the past week fell by 43.2% to $304.4m.
The data, which the regulator has managed to make public during this time, indicate a change in the situation on the cash market of currency: for the first time since the beginning of the year, the sale of currency exceeded the purchase. From $19.7 million on Monday, the net balance of sales decreased to $8.3 million on Tuesday, $1.2 million on Wednesday and $3.0 million on Thursday.
The official hryvnia/$1 exchange rate was volatile last week: from 41.3879 UAH/$1 on Monday, it strengthened to 41.1753 UAH/$1 on Wednesday before weakening again to 41.3955 UAH/$1 at the end of the week.
On the cash market, the hryvnia depreciated by 10-14 kopecks over the week as the margin widened: the buying rate went to UAH 40.95/$1, while the selling rate went to UAH 41.10/$1.
As analysts of KYT Group note, in early April the currency market of Ukraine continued to demonstrate relative stability in the dollar segment and noticeable strengthening of the euro: the dollar rate is declining under the influence of external weakness of the U.S. dollar, while the euro rate is growing both due to the global trend and structural demand for the Euro currency in Ukraine.
“In general, the Ukrainian currency market is characterized by growing liquidity, narrowing spreads and decreasing volatility against the dollar, which is evidence of the formation of relative predictability of further exchange rate trajectories,” KYT Group believes.
They noted that in the domestic market, the rates of purchase and sale have come close to the official rate of the NBU: market rates of both purchase and sale of the dollar began to move almost synchronously with the official, without significant deviations and equidistant from the official – +\- 25 kopecks, which reduces market volatility.
“In the short term (2-4 weeks), the dollar exchange rate is likely to move smoothly in the range of 41.10-41.80 UAH/$ with possible adjustments within 20-30 kopecks, associated with situational demand”, – predicted in KYT Group.
In their opinion, the medium-term perspective (2-4 months) provides for the possibility of returning to the range of 41.80-42.50 UAH/$ in case of inflation growth, import activity or pressure on the budget.
