Currencies firm marginally again in pre-holiday trade

BUCHAREST/WARSAW: Central European currencies firmed mildly in thin pre-holiday trade on Monday,

extending last week's gains across the board following benign economic signals from the United States and the European Central Bank (ECB).

Bonds and currencies in the region have been recovering from multi-week lows last week after the ECB played down concerns over soft euro zone economic data and the US 10-year Treasury yield dipped below three percent.

"With the US fiscal deficit continuing to expand through a combination of higher spending and lower taxes, we suggest rising bond issuance at a time when the Federal Reserve is shrinking its balance sheet means that 10-year yields will push towards 3.5 percent later this year," ING Bank said in a note.

Hungarian markets are closed on Monday and Tuesday, and the other regional markets - open on April 30 - will be shut on May 1 for Labour Day.

"Nothing is going on now since people left for a long weekend ... Europe is also weekending by the barbecue tomorrow, so it's hard to expect any movements, no one is calling," one dealer at a major bank in Warsaw said.

All eyes on Wednesday will be on the release of flash inflation for April in Poland. According to a median of forecasts gathered by Reuters, April inflation amounted to 1.5 percent year-on-year and 0.4 percent month on month.

Central European economies are growing robustly, but inflation figures have been modest so far this year in most of the region, except for Romania where consumer prices hit a 5-year high of five percent last month.