Friday, July 15, 2022: The Nigerian Investors and Exporters (I&E) FX Window closed yesterday’s trading session on a bearish note with the Naira sliding down to N430.33/$1 at the official market representing a 0.86 percent decline against the Dollar from N426.63/$1 recorded as of the close of trading activities the previous day.
An exchange rate of N444/$1 remained the highest rate recorded during the intra-day trading before it settled at N430.33/$1 at the end of the trading session, while it also traded as low at N414/$1 during intra-day trading. According to data from FMDQ, a total of $63.19 million was traded at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) Window for the reporting period. Represent a decline of 28.2 percent from the $87.95 million trade on Thursday. This means that liquidity in the market is decreasing continually as lesser transactions are fulfilled in the official market.
In the parallel market, Naira closed against the dollar at N615/$1, declining by 0.16 percent compared to N614/$1 traded on Friday of the previous week. Trading activities at the B2B market show that the exchange rate closed at about N619/$1 for the same period being reported. This is based on the information obtained from BDC operators in Lagos.
Foreign Reserves
Nigeria’s gross external reserve has been creeping upward since July 2022. According to data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), as of July 14, Nigeria’s foreign reserve stands at $39.43 billion, improving slightly by $6.9 million (0.02 percent) from the 39.42 billion recorded the previous day.
The rising crude oil prices have been the major driver of the external reserves with the CBN’s market intervention cushioning the supply shock of the greenback and helping to stabilize the naira.
Capital Market Update
As of July 15, 2022, the Nigerian equities market closed the trading session on a bullish note as the NGX All Share Index (ASI) rose by 171 basis points (bps) to close at 52215.12. The trading volume was 116,280,764 units, dropping from 198,816,000 units traded the previous day. While the total value that exchanged hands was N3,464,993,743.32, growing by 59 percent from N2.2 billion.
Mixed performance was observed for the sectors under our review as the NGX indices for three sectors increased, while one remaining index declined. Consumer Goods, Banking, Oil and Gas sectors, performances were bullish as the three indices closed in green while Pension index closed in red. The Consumer Goods index leading the gainers rose by 33bps, banking by 10bps, and Oil and gas by 6bps. Pension on the other hand dipped by 48bps.
SEPLAT led the top gainers having risen by 10 percent, on the other hand, CWG led the losers after dropping by 10 percent at the end of the trading session.
