During March, the Israeli shekel strengthened against the dollar by about 2.2 percent, at the same time as the dollar weakened against many other currencies, with the exception of the euro and the yen, reports the Bank of Israel. Nonetheless, the shekel strengthened against the Euro by about 3.1 percent. The nominal effective exchange rate, which represents the change in the shekel against the currencies of Israel’s main trading partners, showed depreciation against the shekel by about 2.3 percent.

The standard deviation of changes in the exchange rate, which represents its actual volatility, was about 5.2 percent in March, compared with 5.5 percent in February and 6.1 percent in January.

The total volume of trade in foreign currency in March was about $101 billion, compared with $92 billion in February, and higher than the monthly average of about $87 billion during 2009. The volume of trade in spots and forward transactions totaled about $32.5 billion in March, about $20 billion of which was transactions by Israelis. The Bank of Israel purchased about $500 million during March.

The volume of trade in OTC foreign currency options (which are not traded on the stock exchange) totaled about $12 billion. The share of foreign financial institutions in this volume of trade stood at about $6 billion, up from $5 billion in February. The volume of trade in swap transactions totaled about $57 billion in March compared with $51 billion in February and $55 billion in January.

The share of foreign residents in the total volume of trade (spots and forward transactions, options transactions and swap transactions) declined in March to 61 percent from 63 percent in February and compared with about 60 percent in January 2009.