The shekel is weakening today against the dollar and strengthening against the euro. In early afternoon inter-bank trading, the shekel-dollar exchange rate is up 0.24% against the dollar at NIS 3.624/$ and down 0.26% against the euro at 4.188/€, Globes reports.
Yesterday, the Bank of Israel set the shekel-dollar representative rate up 0.305% at NIS 3.615/$ from Friday's rate and set the shekel-euro rate down 0.313% at 4.20/€.
Having strengthened last week to the NIS 3.60/$ threshold at the end of last week, the shekel is weakening as the dollar strengthens worldwide as trade war concerns send investors towards the safe haven dollar. President Trump's deadline for imposing more trade tariffs on Chinese exports to the US expires on Thursday and no trade agreement is on the horizon.
Back in Israel, the analysts and other economic experts are divided on whether the Bank of Israel will raise interest rates this year or will delay the hike until the first quarter of 2019. The interest rate has been pegged at an historic low of 0.1% since March 2015.