FX: UAH: competitive devaluation story continues

Макроэкономика 03.11.2014 Last Friday started with the Bank of Japan's announcement that it will increase its monetary stimulus. The yen dropped beyond 111/dollar. The market reacted with surprise and put an watchful eye on the ECB, which has been very hesitant over its action to fight persistently low inflation. However, the ECB received a respite last Friday when Eurostat, the statistical agency, reported a marginal increase in CPI from 0.3% to 0.4% over the past month. The Euro closed at 1.2525/USD. In Moscow, authorities tried and failed to resist the ruble's weakness. On Thursday, a mysterious market player, a term coined by Kremlin propaganda, pushed the RUB up as much as 3.1%. However, last Friday the ruble lost ground again and fell 3.6%. In this environment, the hryvnia remained stable at 13/USD while its real TWI increased 1.5%.