5:12 pm - Monday March 28, 6889

Dollar strong, euro falls further against taka    

The dollar remained at its all time high level at Tk 77.95 per unit against Bangladesh taka in interbank trade on Monday due to stiff demand from importers. This helped the local currency to gain some points against the euro, pound sterling and other EU currencies, dealers said.

Meanwhile, the dollar fell in Asia today after a report revealed a decline in US wages that could dampen consumer spending and delay an interest rate increase. Japanese financial markets were closed for a public holiday, dealers said, the Daily Observer reports.

In the domestic market, despite the country-wide political tension over the blockade programme of opposition political parties, interbank market remained active with higher volume of transactions after the resume of operations in international foreign exchange markets following two-days weekend holiday.

But the dollar traded at earlier rates at Tk 77.9500 per unit, its all time high level, dealers of different commercial banks said.

To cap the rising trend of the US currency, Bangladesh Bank supported some banks with dollar funds. Otherwise, the greenback could go further beyond the expectation to put toll on the importers, market analysts said.

“Now we are supporting the dealers who are badly in need of dollar currency to bring down its price”, a senior BB official told The Daily Observer.

The volume of exports has substantially declined in recent days, he noted.

The single currency was quoted at Tk 92.3084 per unit, pound sterling at Tk 118.2112 and Japanese yen was traded at Tk 0.6577 per unit, dealers said.

The euro was at $1.1856 in Singapore trade, up from $1.1842 in New York late Friday, while it was also at 140.04 yen from 140.29 yen. The dollar dipped to 118.13 yen from 118.46 yen, dealers said.

The US government on Friday reported that the economy added a solid 252,000 jobs in December, while unemployment dropped to 5.6 percent from 5.8 per cent in November.

However, hourly earnings, a sign of the economy’s strength, fell back, almost totally reversing the previous month’s gain. Hourly earnings were up just 1.7 percent from a year ago, just keeping up with inflation.

Analysts said investors focused on the hourly earnings fall because of its impact on consumption. They took the report as allowing the Fed to hold off hiking interest rates too soon, denting speculation of an increase in April and making the dollar less attractive to investors.

Investors were also looking ahead to a meeting of the European Central Bank’s governing council on January 22 for some clues on its intention to launch a quantitative easing (QE) programme of purchasing government bonds like the US Federal Reserve did during the global financial crisis to protect the eurozone from deflation.


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