The shekel is weakening today against the dollar and against the euro. In morning inter-bank trading, the shekel-dollar exchange rate is up 0.39% against the dollar at NIS 3.575/$ and up 0.26% against the euro at 4.361/€, Globes reports.
Yesterday, the Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar representative rate up 0.480% from Monday's exchange rate at NIS 3.561/$ and set the shekel-euro rate up 0.367% at 4.350/€.
The shekel is trading against the dollar at its highest exchange rate (its weakest) since the start of September 2017. The dollar is strong worldwide with the dollar index rising more than 7% since the start of the year, with the interest rate gap widening between the US currency and other major world currencies. The US Federal Reserve plans more rate hikes this year with the Bank of Israel saying it will not raise interest above its historic low of 0.1% before the last quarter of 2018.
US Treasury bond yields have moved over 3% and above and beyond monetary policy, financial experts are feeling more confident about the US economy in terms of growth and job creation.