Business Post Contributor
By Sodeinde Temidayo David
Last week, the total transactions made at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the Nigerian foreign exchange (forex) market stood at $585.3 million.
This is according to the data of the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Rate Fixing (NAFEX) harvested from the FMDQ Securities Exchange during the week.
The data tracked by Business Post from November 1 to November 5, 2021, at the specialised market segment for FX showed that on a week-on-week comparison, the value of transactions recorded at the market window declined by 26.5 per cent or $210.7 million from the $796.0 million quoted at the preceding week.
This simply showed that the average daily turnover for the week stood at $117.1 million in contrast to the $159.2 million recorded a week earlier.
It was observed that the decline in last week’s turnover was influenced by the low transactions recorded last Tuesday and Friday, as well as a low appetite for forex as forex liquidity in the system seems to be improving with the recent increase in the nation’s reserves triggered by an increase in the price of crude oil, the country’s major FX earnings.
Last Tuesday, the turnover crashed to $62.58 million from $160.64 million achieved at the first trading session and at the midweek, the turnover stood at $133.37 million but then fell to $129.54 million on Thursday and further declined to $99.14 million at the close of the week.
In reaction to the fall in the forex transactions at the I&E window, the Nigeria currency appreciated in a bid to draw more engagement in the market.
On a week-on-week basis, the exchange rate of the Naira to the United States Dollar was in favour of the former as it appreciated by 80 kobo or 0.19 per cent to N414.30/$1 from the preceding week’s N415.10/$1.
A breakdown of the performance of the domestic currency for the week showed that it closed last Monday at N414.98/$1 and depreciated to N415.07/$1 the next day before appreciating to N414.80/$1 at the midweek trading session. It then declined to N415.10/$1 on Thursday before its close on Friday at N414.30/$1.
But at the interbank segment, the local currency depreciated against the greenback by 20 kobo or 0.05 per cent to trade at N411.29/$1 in contrast to N411.09/$1 it ended a week earlier.
