The spread between the interbank and parallel market exchange rates fell by $/N53.50 to $/N88.00 at the end of last week’s trading following the continued interventions in the foreign exchange market by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
This represents a 37.81 percent decrease from the spread of $/N141.50 recorded the previous week-ending March 17, according to data from FMDQ.
During the week-ended March 24, the CBN continued its supply of dollars to the market, selling a total of $271 million through several interventions conducted. The apex bank kept its marginal rate for the Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) – Wholesale Forwards intervention at $/N320 during the week.
A report by FMDQ showed that within last week, the exchange rate in the parallel market firmed by $/N53.00 to close at $/N395, indicating a 11.83 percent gain when compared with $/N448.00 reported at the end of the previous week-ending March 17, 2017.
At the inter-bank market, the official exchange rate fell by $/N0.50 to close at $/N307.00, indicating a 0.16 percent drop when compared to $/N306.50 reported at the end of the previous week-ending March 17, 2017.
Last week, trading activity in the spot forex market between the banks and their clients stood at $421.87 million with average daily turnover of $84.37 million, representing a 11.18 percent decrease from the $475.09 million with average daily turnover of $95.02 million recorded in the previous week.
Activity in the Spot forex market amongst banks for the same trading week revealed a 3.41 percent decrease, as a total turnover of $97.90mm with average daily turnover of $19.58mm was recorded against the $101.36mm with average daily turnover of $20.27mm reported the previous week.
In the OTC FX Futures market, the 9th Naira-settled OTC FX Futures contract, NGUS MAR 22 2017, with notional amount of $354.00mm matured and settled on Wednesday, March 22, 2017, on FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange, the OTC FX Futures Exchange.
This brings the total value of contracts so far matured on the OTC FX Futures Exchange to $2.42bn, and about $6.24bn worth of OTC FX Futures contracts traded so far.
The CBN refreshed the quotes for the existing 1- to 11-month contracts and introduced a new 12-month contract, NGUS MAR 28 2018, for $1.00bn at $/N298.50. Still in the OTC FX Futures market, contracts worth $241.22mm traded in about 35 deals for the week-ended March 24, 2017, compared to the previous week’s total of $97.77mm traded in about 20 deals.
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