In the just concluded week, NGN/USD rate rose further (i.e. Naira depreciated) at the Investors and Exporters FX Window (I&E FXW) by 0.11% to close at N364.37/USD as external reserves fell further to USD37.73 billion on Thursday,
February 6, 2020, from USD38.06 billion on Thursday, January 30, 2020.
However, Naira was flattish against the US dollars at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market at N358.51/USD, amid weekly injections of USD210 million by CBN into the foreign exchange market via the Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS), of which: USD100 million was allocated to Wholesale SMIS, USD55 million was allocated to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises and USD55 million was sold for Invisibles.
Similarly, Naira was unchanged against the USD at the Bureau De Change and the parallel (“black”) markets to close at N358/USD and N360.00/USD respectively. Elsewhere, the Naira/USD exchange rate rose for most of the foreign exchange forward contracts – 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, 6 months and 12 months rates depreciated by 0.21%, 0.24%, 0.20%, 0.56%, and 1.09% respectively to close at N367.14/USD, N369.57/USD, N371.69/USD, N379.26/USD, and N399.75/USD respectively.
However, the Spot rate fell by 0.02% to close at N307.00/USD.
In the new week, we expect stability of the Naira against the USD across the market segments as CBN sustains its intervention.
