BUDAPEST/WARSAW: The crown eased slightly on Monday on rising expectations that the Czech central bank (CNB) will not lift its main interest rates when it meets later this week.
The CNB did raise domestic banks' countercyclical buffer rate to 1.25 percent on Monday, from 1 percent, but the crown did not react.
The crown eased a tad to 25.68 against the euro by 1356 GMT, off Friday's seven-week low of 25.72 set as expectations for a rate hike when the bank meets on Thursday dwindled.
Recent tame inflation data from the region and the prospect of dollar gains if US lawmakers pass a tax cut bill later this week, are not supportive for central and eastern European currencies.
"(But) the major CEE (central and eastern European) currencies are currently profiting from a solid EM (emerging markets) and risk-taking sentiment," Raiffeisen analyst Gunter Deuber said in a note.
The forint got additional support from the closing of short government bond positions, even as the Hungarian central bank is expected to reaffirm its loose policy stance on Tuesday.
Primary dealers were informed by the government debt management agency that it would not hold its regular bi-weekly bond tender this week, one Budapest fixed income trader said.
AKK confirmed that to Reuters.
Hungarian bond yields fell 4-6 basis points from Friday's fixing along the curve.
Interest rates in Poland are likely to stay unchanged by the end of 2019, rate setter Kamil Zubelewicz was quoted as saying by the daily Parkiet.
The zloty firmed 0.1 percent. The Romanian leu gained a quarter or a percent.
Corporate wages in Poland surged 6.5 percent in November from a year earlier, data showed on Monday, although that was below analysts' forecast of 7.1 percent.
The European Commission on Wednesday may trigger a so-called "Article 7" procedure against Warsaw over Poland's planned overhaul of its judiciary.
That would bring Poland one step closer to losing its voting right in the EU, but any financial consequence remained a remote risk, BZ WBK analysts said in a note.
The dinar was briefly bid at 4-week highs at 118.5 against the euro on Monday, after Fitch and Standard & Poor's upgraded Serbia's credit rating late on Friday.
By late trade, the dinar had retreated to 118.8, down 0.1 percent from Friday.
The rating upgrades should nudge Serbia's central bank towards cutting the region's highest interest rates further, the bank's former governor, Dejan Soskic, told the N1 television channel.
"Another and perhaps more important factor was payment of VAT by companies which was on Friday and that boosted demand for the dinar," one Belgrade-based dealer said.
In equity markets, a 4 percent jump in Polish copper producer KGHM helped Warsaw's blue-chip index rise by more than one percent. In Budapest, drugmaker Richter gained 2.3 percent after good drug trial results.
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