CEE MARKETS-Forint eases slightly ahead of inflation data on Wednesday

BUDAPEST, March 7 (Reuters) - The Hungarian forint eased slightly on Tuesday ahead of February inflation figures to be released on Wednesday, with analysts projecting a marginal decline in central Europe's highest price growth rate to an annual 25.4%. At 0944 GMT, the forint was down 0.1% at 377.5 versus the euro, underperforming its regional peers, which were broadly unchanged. Even with the morning retreat, however, the forint was well within sight of near 10-month-highs at 375 per euro scaled last week after the National Bank of Hungary left the European Union's highest benchmark rate steady at 18%. Budapest stocks eased 1.2% in morning trade, led by a 2.4% fall in the shares of OTP Bank , which reports fourth-quarter results on Friday. "The forint is not showing major swings after today's opening," economists at Erste Investment said in a note. "We could see a wait-and-see attitude ahead of tomorrow's February inflation data, which could show a slight decline in the headline rate." The economists said U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's Congressional testimony could also affect the forint's exchange rate. The Polish zloty was steady ahead of Wednesday's rate-setting meeting by the National Bank of Poland (NBP), where analysts polled by Reuters unanimously expect the key rate to remain unchanged at 6.75%. "Despite the possible increased volatility of the global FX markets, this week we expect a stabilisation of the EUR/PLN exchange rate around 4.71," Millennium Bank said in a report. "The coming days will be dominated by the outcome of the Monetary Policy Council meeting. While we do not expect changes in interest rates, the latest set of NBP macroeconomic forecasts analysed by the markets in terms of the timing of the first cut in the cost of money will be interesting." The Czech crown was marginally weaker, but still within sight of near 15-year-highs hit last week. The Czech National Bank's current interest rate setting should be enough to bring inflation down this year as long as wages do not fundamentally accelerate or the crown weakens to unexpected levels, new board member Jan Kubicek told a news website.

CEE SNAPSHO AT

MARKETS T 1044

CET

CURRENC

IES

Latest Previou Daily Change s

bid close change in 2023 EURCZK Czech <EURCZK 23.5580 23.5520 -0.03% +2.55% = crown =>
EURHUF Hungary <EURHUF 377.500 377.000 -0.13% +5.81% = forint => 0 0
EURPLN Polish <EURPLN 4.6865 4.6895 +0.06% +0.07% = zloty =>
EURRON Romanian <EURRON 4.9197 4.9195 -0.00% +0.46% = leu =>
EURHRK Croatian <EURHRK 7.5330 7.5365 +0.05% +0.05% = kuna =>
EURRSD Serbian <EURRSD 117.250 117.330 +0.07% +0.04% = dinar => 0 0

Note: calculated from 1800

daily CET

change

Latest Previou Daily Change s

close change in 2023 .PX Prague 1405.54 1420.48 -1.05% +16.96 00 % .BUX Budapest 43811.9 44337.4 -1.19% +0.04% 4 4
.WIG20 Warsaw <.WIG20 1873.47 1873.63 -0.01% +4.55% >
.BETI Buchares 12451.1 12482.5 -0.25% +6.75% t 7 5
.SBITO Ljubljan <.SBITO 1200.17 1201.54 -0.11% +14.43 P a P> % .CRBEX Zagreb <.CRBEX 2268.82 2266.68 +0.09% +763.4 > 2% .BELEX Belgrade <.BELEX 890.68 890.58 +0.01% +8.01% 15 15>
.SOFIX Sofia <.SOFIX 631.98 629.17 +0.45% +5.07% >

Yield Yield Spread Daily (bid) change vs Bund change in Czech spread Republic
CZ2YT= 2-year <CZ2YT= 6.0450 -0.0520 +279bp +0bps RR RR> s
CZ5YT= 5-year <CZ5YT= 5.2880 -0.0850 +249bp -1bps RR RR> s
CZ10YT <CZ10YT 4.9380 -0.0660 +228bp +1bps =RR 10-year =RR> s

Poland
PL2YT= 2-year <PL2YT= 6.2200 -0.1780 +297bp -12bps RR RR> s
PL5YT= 5-year <PL5YT= 6.3090 -0.1110 +351bp -3bps RR RR> s
PL10YT <PL10YT 6.2990 -0.1250 +364bp -5bps =RR 10-year =RR> s

FORWARD

3x6 6x9 9x12 3M interba nk Czech <CZKFRA 7.22 7.05 6.61 7.20 Rep ><PRIBO

R=>

Hungary <HUFFRA 14.70 13.10 11.95 16.29 ><BUBOR

Poland <PLNFRA 6.96 6.94 6.61 6.94 ><WIBOR

Note: are for ask

FRA prices

quotes

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(Reporting by Pawel Florkiewicz and Robert Muller; Writing by Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

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CEE MARKETS-Forint eases slightly ahead of inflation data on Wednesday

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