The leu opened at 4.418/4.42 per euro and slid towards 4.43 per euro in a the first half of the session, in a quiet market with low transferred volumes.
In the afternoon, the leu weakened further and touched the day’s low at 4.44 units, before returning towards 4.427 units by closing time.
“It looks like foreign investors sold euros and bought the currencies in the region, as both the [Hungarian] forint and the [Polish] zloty were rising and only the leu was falling. As the leu strated to recover, the traded volumes visibly increased,” a dealer said.
At Bucharest closing time, both the zloty and the forint were up 1% against the euro.
Romania’s central bank set the leu’s exchange rate at 4.4296, 0.15% weaker than Monday. The market was closed Tuesday and Wednesday for the Christmas holidays.
Against the US dollar, however, the leu’s reference gained 0.25% to 3.3384 units.
On the money market Thursday, overnight rates were flat at 7%-7.5% a year.