Norwegian krone weaker on rate cut

Norwegian krone weaker on rate cut

Story link: Norwegian krone weaker on rate cut

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The Norwegian krone weakened versus the euro and the US dollar Wednesday after Norges Bank, Norway’s central bank, cut its deposit rate by half a percentage point to 2 percent.

The deposit rate is the interest earned by deposited funds.

At midday in New York, the krone traded at kr8.8132 to the euro and at kr6.5059 to the greenback.

Meanwhile the South Korean won strengthened on a statement that the South Korean government will spend 17.7 trillion won ($13.3 billion) on economic recovery by the middle of the year.

The won traded at won1,362.4 to the US currency at just past noon in New York.

The greenback was weaker against the euro and the yen but had made back some of its losses by midday in New York, with both the decline and the slight recovery spurred by comments from US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Mr. Geithner sent the dollar into retreat after he said that the US would be open to enlarging special drawing rights of the International Monetary Fund, which would hurt the dollar, but the currency rebounded slightly after he said he believes that the greenback will continue as the world’s reserve currency.

The euro, meanwhile, was helped by an Ifo institute survey which came in as expected, even though it showed that German business sentiment fell to its lowest level in over 26 years in March.

In midday trade in New York, the dollar traded at $1.3539 to the euro and the shared currency was worth ¥132.2773, while at the same time the yen traded at ¥97.7 to the greenback.