Currency report: Złoty on a rollercoaster

Since no important data was published in Poland, local investors had to focus on news from abroad.

Investors' optimism increased when the American indices bounced back after the previous week's selloff. As risk aversion declined, demand for the złoty increased and the Polish currency strengthened over the course of the week after big swings. The USD/PLN declined from Wednesday's zł.2.7948 to zł.2.7516. The EUR/PLN, which started the week at zł.3.8146, tumbled all the way to zł.3.7733 on Friday.

A strong appreciation of the American dollar against all major currencies around the world was caused by Wednesday's macroeconomic reports and by Henry Paulson, US Treasury Secretary. He confirmed that the US economy is doing well and that it is strong enough to bounce back from last week's selloff on the equities market. The end of the week was not so good for the greenback though. Non-farm payrolls declined to 92,000 against a forecasted 135,000. A bigger surprise to the market was that the unemployment rate in the US rose to 4.6 percent.

Adam Narczewski, X-Trade Brokers Dom Maklerski SA