Joe Biden messed with Japan and the dollar with half the world

The euro-dollar exchange rate broke the level of 1.03 on Thursday, thereby dropping the quotation to another two-year low, but the next day, the correction arrived and the exchange rate of the most important currency pair closed above 1.03 again.

The dollar is fueled by expectations regarding the Fed’s monetary policy, it is expected that the American central bank will not change interest rates at this month’s meeting, on the other hand, the European Central Bank cannot do anything but relax interest rates in view of the bad economic data. The lowest point in weekly trading was 1.022.

Tesla sales have stalled. In the fourth quarter, the company sold 496,000 cars, slightly below the expected number of 503,000. The full year ended with 1.79 million sales, which was 1 percent less than in 2023. Since Tesla has been making cars, 2024 was the first year that sales did not increase on a year-over-year basis.

They went up a lot oil prices. Brent rose above $76.7 a barrel on Friday, a more than two-month high. On the one hand, the Chinese economic stimulus measures are helping the rise, and on the other hand, the decrease in American oil stocks is driving the quotation prices upwards.

A to the Hungarian stock exchange restrained traffic was typical, BUX approached the 80,000 point level several times, but failed to pass the psychological level. The turnover was low, and the majority of investors are not expected to return until Monday. After several negative days overseas, the correction came on Friday, with which the S&P 500 index closed the week at 5,942 points (the all-time high was 6,090 points, which was reached on December 6).

On the other hand, the Hungarian currency suffered a lot at the beginning of the year, on Friday the euro-forint cross rate was above 416, from which it was possible to cosmeticize the rather overwhelming overall picture with only pennies.

In the background is the strengthening of the dollar for weeks and even months, which traditionally does not favor smaller emerging market currencies. THE dollar is at a two-year high against the forintso even though 2024 closed with a quite acceptable exchange rate of HUF 395, trading has since been above HUF 405.

The European Central Bank can continue easing. Jannisz Szturnarasz, a member of the Governing Council of the ECB, stated that the base interest rate may drop to around 2 percent around autumn. The central banker’s forecast is in line with market expectations, according to which the ECB will cut interest rates at every meeting until the middle of 2025, i.e. a total of four interest rate cuts can be prepared. Based on the eurozone data, there is no reason to wait, the economy must be supported with lower interest rates.

US President Joe Biden vetoed the acquisition of US SteelJapan’s Nippon Steel made a $14.9 billion bid for the company. Earlier, there were fears that the megastore could fall into the abyss, as experts warned that the acquisition could reduce the capacities of the American company, which poses a risk from a national security point of view.

Corrected by kriptopiac. Bitcoin closed the year 2024 below 94,000 dollars, but by the end of the first week of the new year, the exchange rate was approaching the level of 97,600 dollars.

On December 31, the State Debt Management Center on behalf of the Hungarian state proceeding purchased another HUF 462 billion worth of government securities from the Hungarian National Bank. Yields rose on the secondary market, and the yield on the 20-year reference paper rose above 7 percent again after a long time.