Slovak crown stronger, eyes cbank repo for trend

...investors waited for a new central bank 
signal about the currency's strength, traders said. 
    The Slovak unit was quoted at 33.270 per euro  as 
of 1320 GMT, compared with 33.345 late on Thursday. 
    "The crown is no longer the regional driver these days, the 
Polish zloty is," one foreign bank trader in Bratislava said. 
"The crown will track the region, and everybody is waiting for 
the repo tender (on Tuesday)." 
    The zloty rose against the euro after the rating agency  
Standard and Poor's raised Poland's foreign and local currency 
debt rating, and the gains drove other central European 
currencies higher as well. 
    The next domestic factor for the Slovak unit will be a 
liquidity-draining repo tender on Tuesday. 
    The central bank intervened directly last week and rejected 
part of the repo tender bids this week to leave the market with 
excess crown liquidity and discourage hot money inflows. 
    The bank has tried to prevent the crown from firming too far 
from its new parity rate in the exchange rate mechanism ERM-2, 
after the peg to the euro was revalued by 8.5 percent earlier 
this month. 
------------------ MARKET SNAPSHOT AT 1320 GMT ----------------- 
Crown/euro  33.270 vs 33.345 on Thursday (+0.23 pct) 
Crown/dollar   at 24.985 vs 25.020 (+0.14) 
5-yr govt bond  yield 4.170/3.971 pct vs 4.045/3.942 
7-yr govt bond  yield 4.229/3.979 pct vs 4.293/4.093 
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