Active transactions of banks on NASDAQ OMX Armenia and interbank forex market prevented dram from depreciation

ArmInfo. During the current week, the equal activeness on the stock exchange and the interbank forex market has prevented the Armenian dram from depreciation. On November 16-20, NASDAQ OMX Armenia was active on Wednesday and Thursday only, registering the same amount of transactions as the interbank forex market throughout the week without the Central Bank's intervention. As a result, the AMD/USD exchange rate rose from 473 AMD/$1 to 478 AMD/$1 during the first week of November. It grew to 483 AMD/$1 during the second week of November and stood at that level on November 13-20.

According to the CBA press office, on November 16-20, NASDAQ OMX Armenia was active on Wednesday and Thursday - the transactions totaled $3.080 mln and formed the average exchange rate at 482.67 AMD/1USD.  The transactions on the interbank forex market totaled $4.135 mln, forming the average exchange rate at the level of 482.63 AMD/1USD. The latest large interventions of the Central Bank were on November 13 - $19.6 mln, on October 2 - supposedly $6 mln, on September 19 - $22.2 mln and August 28 - $95 mln.

The source says that on November 16-20, on the intrabank currency market (transactions with customers) the banks bought $81.7 mln (22% rise versus the previous week) at the average exchange rate of 480.88 AMD/$1, and sold $74.02 mln (0.1% rise) at the average exchange rate of 482.89 AMD/$1. In the meantime, the banks bought 7.3 mln EUR (down 66%) at the average exchange rate of 512.64 AMD/1EUR, and sold 11.5 mln EUR (down 11.5%) at the exchange rate of 517.89 AMD/1EUR.  The banks also bought 1.1 bln RUR (more than 2-fold growth) at the average exchange rate of 7.31 AMD/1RUR and sold 342.7 mln RUR (84% decline) at the exchange rate of 7.43 AMD/1RUR.

During the previous week (November 9-15) the Armenian banks provided AMD loans worth 48.9 bln AMD and USD loans worth $31.3 mln. As compared with the previous week (November 2-8), AMD loans decreased by 19.9% and the ones in terms of USD fell by 14.2%.  

To recall, during the last months of 2014 the forex market of Armenia registered a sharp rise of the AMD/USD exchange rate - over 570 AMD/1USD. From October through December 17, 2014, AMD depreciated by almost 45% in the retail forex market of Armenia, then it appreciated by 25% on Dec 18-20, staring depreciating against on Dec 22.  On Dec 27, the average AMD/USD exchange rate was 470 AMD/$1, the AMD/EUR exchange rate was 574 AMD/1EUR, the AMD/RUR exchange rate was 8.7 AMD/1RUR.  Over 2014, NASDAQ OMX Armenia registered transactions worth a total of $744.5 mln, with the biggest amount falling on November ($117 mln). Over the year the exchange rate on NASDAQ OMX Armenia rose from 407.14 to 560 AMD/$1 (on Dec 17 the exchange rate rose by 22%), dropping to 470 AMD/$1 by Dec 27. In 2014, in the retail forex market of Armenia, the AMD depreciated against USD by 40%, with the maximum indicator (570 AMD) fixed on Dec 17 and the minimum (406 AMD) registered in July. In the course of the 9 months of 2015, in the retail forex market AMD appreciated from 477 to 473 against USD; from 571.5 to 532 against EUR, at the same time depreciating from 8.2 to 7.2 against RUR. In October, the average USD/AMD exchange rate was floating.  On October 30, it made up 473 AMD/1$. The national currency appreciated against EUR (520 AMD/1EUR) and appreciated against RUR (7.5 AMD/1RUR). In November the Armenian dram started showing signs of devaluation again, depreciating against USD (483 AMD/$1). At the same time the dram appreciated against EUR (517 AMD/1EUR), with the AMD/RUR exchange rate standing at 7.5 AMD/1RUR as of Nov 20.