December 24 (SeeNews) - The Romanian leu hit an almost one-and-a-half-month high against the euro on Monday before losing some ground later in quiet trading with just a few foreign players present, dealers said.
The leu closed at 3.4734/72 per euro, compared to 3.4790/4840 on Friday, one dealer told SeeNews.
"The leu hit a level of 3.4525 per euro at around 12 o'clock [1000 GMT] and after staying there for a while, the euro recovered a bit to depreciate it [the leu] to 3.47-3.48 at the moment [1230 GMT]," another dealer told SeeNews earlier.
Local investors prevailed in a pre-Christmas market with low trading volumes. High overnight leu interest rates and Romanians working abroad returning for the holidays supported the leu a day before Christmas, the second dealer said.
The leu last traded at a stronger level on November 14 at 3.4477 per euro, central bank (BNR) data indicated.
BNR set its reference exchange rate, used for statistical purposes, at 3.4673 per euro on Monday, compared to 3.4943 on Friday. For the dollar, the reference exchange rate was set at 2.4086 versus Friday's 2.4334 lei.
Interest rates on overnight leu deposits were at an average 7.40%/8.08% on Monday versus 7.14%/7.92% on Friday.
Turnover on the interbank leu deposit market rose to 3,373 million lei on Friday from 2,817.6 million lei on Thursday. The BNR will issue Monday's figures on Thursday after the Christmas holidays.
Following are Monday's average bid and ask quotes of commercial banks on Romania's interbank market. They were calculated at 11 a.m. (0900 GMT) by the BNR, based on data provided by 10 commercial banks (in percent):
|
|
ROBID |
ROBOR |
| ON |
7.40 |
8.08 |
| TN |
7.40 |
8.08 |
| SW |
7.40 |
8.16 |
| 1M |
7.48 |
8.24 |
| 3M |
7.64 |
8.38 |
| 6M |
7.69 |
8.44 |
| 9M |
7.67 |
8.54 |
| 12M |
7.63 |
8.56 |