SAT. 07 JANUARY, 2023-theGBJournal| This week, Nigeria’s FX reserve maintained its accretion, as the gross reserve position rose by US$70.13 million w/w to close at USD37.15 billion (05 January 2023).
Meanwhile, the naira was flat at N461.67/USD at the I&E window (IEW).
On activity levels, the total turnover (05 January) at the IEW declined by 43.5% WTD to US$290.93 million, with trades consummated within the N425.00 – N477.67/USD band.
In the Forwards market, the naira depreciated at the 1-month (-0.5% to N470.35/USD) and 1-year (-0.2% to N530.67/USD) contracts, but appreciated at the 3-month (+0.1% to N479.54/USD) contract. The naira was flat at the 6-month (N497.58/USD) contract.
For our outlook, we believe the FX liquidity issues will remain over the short-to-medium term as we do not see any positive signal that denotes an improvement in FX supply relative to the pre-pandemic levels.
Meanwhile, the overnight (OVN) rate started this week lower, but eventually closed higher by 317bps w/w to 14.5% as late debits for CRR (N995.15 billion) were enough to pressure the system liquidity.
The average system liquidity (excluding the late CRR debits) settled higher at a net long position of N1.29 trillion (vs a net long position of N550.15 billion in the previous week).
Twitter-@theGBJournal|Facebook-The Government and Business Journal|email:gbj@govbusinessjournal.ng|govandbusinessj@gmail.com
