The HUF rally of the past month appears to be fading already. What went wrong? There could be a minor technical factor, and a more significant fundamental one, Tatha Ghose, FX Analyst at Commerzbank, reports.

Dire situation surrounding EU funds

“The technical factor could be the issue of $4.25bn of USD bonds last week, which produced a surge in FX inflow, which could have helped HUF performance. Perhaps in a low liquidity situation, the flow made a positive (technical) impact for a few days, which is now reversing.”

“Hungarian Finance Ministry’s Tibor Toth clarified that the government may be able to unfreeze some of its EU funds by H2 2023. However, it was difficult to know whether this was a realistic prospect or not – the Finance Ministry’s clarification probably implies that the necessary reforms are not in place yet, hence the guidance timeframe shifts back to later in H2 2023.”