Forex News

The rising interest rates difference between the U.S. and Poland stimulated the second week of Polish zloty’s growth against the U.S. dollar.

Today both the Australian and New Zealand dollars continued their daily growth against their counterpart from the United States on willingness of the Forex traders to earn from the interest rates difference.

GCC states — Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — decided to cut their deposit rates from 3.50% to 3.00% today, following the yesterday’s interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve.

The majority of Forex traders expected that the Reserve Bank of India will lower the main interest rates today to pare with recent emergency cut by the Fed and the anticipated additional interest cut at tomorrow Fed’s meeting. But Yaga Venugopal Reddy, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, decided to leave the key interest rates at the same level.

After two other European central banks decided to hold their current interest rates, Czech and Polish banks chose to follow the same way and didn’t change their reference interest rates despite the fact that they both raised the rates at the end of November.

Swedish central bank left the main interest rate unchanged at 4.00% during the meeting of the Executive Board on 18 December.

Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Hungarian Central Bank) decided today during the Monetary Council’s meeting to hold the main refinancing interest rate at the same level - 7.50%, after the last cut made from 7.75% by MNB on September 25.

Yesterday Chilean central bank increased its interest rate by 0.25 basis points up to 6.0%. It was the first rate hike in Chile since September 13 this year.

Swiss National Bank chose to keep the national three-month Libor (interest rate) unchanged at 2.75% after it was increased by 0.25% back in September 2007. After this announcement Swiss franc gained a little against all other major currencies except the Japanese yen.

The United Arab Emirates decided to cut their bank repository rate by 0.25% to 5.25%; Saudi Arabia decreased its benchmark rate for deposits also by 0.25% to 4.0%; Qatar and Bahrain reduced their deposit rates by the same amount - 0.25% to 4.0%. Kuwait refrained from changing the country’s interest rate, because they’ve already removed their currency’s peg to dollar back in May 2007.