Shekel gains, halting dramatic slide
The Israeli currency has halted a remarkable slide in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, which has seen it fall from NIS 3.46/$ at the start of March.
The shekel was strengthening on the 18th of March against the dollar and against the euro. In afternoon of the 18th, inter-bank trading the shekel was down 1.02% at NIS 3.8226/$ and down 1.70% against the euro at NIS 4.1748/€.
On the 17th of March, the Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar exchange rate 3.862% higher than the 16th of March rate, at NIS 3.862/$, and the representative shekel-euro rate was set 1.993% higher, at NIS 4.247/€.
The Israeli currency has halted a remarkable slide in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, which has seen it fall from NIS 3.46/$ and NIS 3.84/€ at the start of the month. The weakness of the shekel, even though the Israeli economy has come into the crisis, with very strong fundamentals, has been attributed to the need for Israel institutional investors to buy large amounts of foreign currency to cover their exposure and meet margin calls due to the strong in overseas stock markets. Today global stock exchanges including the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange are again recording very heavy declines, although the strengthening of the shekel might be a reaction to yesterday's stock market rises.