Slovak crown edges up vs euro, seen in range

...rating upgrade in Poland, but dealers said 
the unit was likely to hold steady in the short term. 
    At 1450 GMT, the crown traded at 33.345 per euro , 
compared with 33.450 late on Wednesday. 
    "The Polish upgrade helped a bit. We are moving quite a lot 
now along with all emerging markets," said a dealer with a 
foreign bank in Bratislava. 
    Standard & Poor's raised its rating on Poland's foreign and 
local currency debt to reflect prospects for strong economic 
growth. High-yielding currencies came under pressure on 
Wednesday due to increasing risk aversion. 
    A confirmation of strong investment inflows to Slovakia was 
also supporting the currency, dealers said. The central bank 
(NBS) said on Wednesday that foreign direct investment in the 
country more than doubled to 57.7 billion crowns last year. 
    Traders expected the crown to hover between 33.350 and 
33.750 per euro in the coming days, saying room for further 
gains was limited by a risk of the NBS' intervention. 
    The NBS cut the key interest rate by 25 basis points earlier 
this week. The bank also intervened massively against the crown 
last week and left the money market awash with excess liquidity 
to discourage speculators. 
    "Short euro positioning and the shortage of local impetus 
suggests that EUR/SKK will still struggle on the downside from 
here," said Lucy Bethell, currency strategist at Royal Bank of 
Scotland. "We'd rather buy the euro dips at this stage." 
------------------ MARKET SNAPSHOT AT 1450 GMT ----------------- 
Crown/euro  33.345 vs 33.450 on Wednesday (+0.30 pct) 
Crown/dollar   at 25.020 vs 25.066 (+0.18) 
5-yr govt bond  yield 4.045/3.942 pct vs 4.101/3.900 
7-yr govt bond  yield 4.293/4.093 pct vs 4.249/4.100 
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