Naira eases against dollar despite CBN’s intervention

Naira yesterday weakened against the US dollar losing 24 kobo at the Nigerian Interbank Foreign Exchange (NIFEX) market.

The local currency yesterday closed at N159.64/$ as against N159.40/$ the previous day, data from Financial Markets Dealers Quotations (FMDQ) have indicated.

At the official market, naira also depreciated losing N0.01k to close at N155.75/$ compared to N155.74/$ traded the previous day.

This is in spite of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s $390 million intervention at the Retail Dutch Action System (RDAS) window.

The CBN yesterday offered a total of $400 million but sold a total of $390 million to some deposit money banks at N155.75/$ at its twice weekly RDAS window.

Analysts attributed the naira depreciation to increased demand for the greenback by the end users even as there was no supply from the autonomous source.

However, naira remained stable at the parallel market yesterday closing at N173/$, dealers told BusinessDay.

Interest rates at the money market yesterday remained stable as call tenor remained at 10.50 percent, while 7 days, 30 days, 60 days and 90 days stood at 10.83, 11.08, 11.37 and 11.66 percent respectively.

Source: BusinessDay