Weekly Forex Turnover at I&E Skyrockets to $1.1bn

By Sodeinde Temidayo David

In one week, the total value of transactions recorded at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange (forex) market in Nigeria rose to $1.1 billion.

Data obtained by Business Post from the FMDQ Securities Exchange showed that the weekly forex turnover at the I&E was 18.73 per cent or $183.56 million higher than the $980.1 million recorded a week earlier.

The FMDQ exchange, which tracks trades on the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Rate Fixing (NAFEX) platform, revealed that the significant spike in the value of the transactions was due to the high FX demand last Friday, a day after the Naira depreciated against the United States Dollar to an all-time low of N422.07/$1, triggering panic at the FX window.

At the first trading session of last week, the turnover was $184.3 million and the next day, it dropped to $153.4 million before skyrocketing to $306.8 million on Wednesday and the next day, the turnover went down to $141.9 million before jumping to $337.3 million due to decision of investors to quickly pull out their funds as a result of comments by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo interpreted to mean he was in full support of the devaluation of the local currency so as to allow it get its true market value.

As for the performance of the Naira against the US dollar at the investors’ window in the week, it depreciated by 0.2 per cent or 77 kobo week-on-week to N415.07/$1 from N414.30/$1 in the preceding week.

The weakening of the local currency at the FX market window must have been caused by the rise in the demand for forex experienced at the mid-week and the last trading session as well as the shortage supply of forex to traders to meet the demands of their customers.

It was gathered that last Monday, the domestic currency traded at N414.40/$1 at the I&E segment and appreciated to N414.30/$1 on Tuesday.

At the midweek session, it fell to N415.10/$1 and the next day, it dropped to an all-time low of N422.07/$1 before bouncing back to close at N415.07/$1 last Friday.

Also at the interbank segment of the market, the Nigerian currency lost 0.02 per cent or 10 kobo week-on-week against the American Dollar to trade at N410.91/$1 versus the previous week’s N410.81/$1.