29 December 2015, Sweetcrude, Houston – Local and international financial market products and services update.
NIGERIA: Nigeria earned N412.983 billion from the export of Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG, Liquefied Petroleum Gas, LPG, also known as cooking gas and other gaseous materials in three months, between July and September 2015, according to data obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS.
The NBS, in its Foreign Trade Statistics Report for the Third Quarter of 2015, revealed that this represented an increase of 9.5% or N35.813 billion when compared to N377.17 billion earned by the country from the export of those commodities in the second quarter of 2015.
Giving a breakdown of the third quarter figures, the NBS stated that the country’s LNG export stood at N262.202 billion; liquefied propane export was valued at N106.803 billion, while the export of other petroleum gases, among others, in gaseous state was valued at N22.762 billion.
FIXED INCOME: There were pockets of last minute trades that went through before the long Holiday weekend. Bonds were better buyers most of that day. T-bills market was slightly different with some selling towards close of trading on Wednesday last week. It was a pretty quiet day in both bond and T-bill.
FX: The CBN daily auction closed for the year on Friday the 18th December 2015 and will resume January 4 2016.
COMMODITIES: Oil held losses as Saudi Arabia announced a budget that reflects scaled-back revenue expectations and lower spending as the world’s biggest exporter copes with plunging prices.
Futures were little changed in New York after dropping 3.4% Monday. OPEC’s most powerful member will cut spending next year as revenue is projected to drop by more than 15%. The 2016 budget assumes a Brent price of $37 a barrel, according to John Sfakianakis, a Riyadh-based economist at Ashmore Group Plc and a former government adviser.
U.K: The odds are stacking up against the pound for 2016. With growth slowing and the potential for a referendum on Britain’s future in the European Union as soon as June, options traders are the most bearish on the pound in more than six months. The currency has undershot analysts’ forecasts by the most since 2010 this year, while predictions for the end of 2016 haven’t been lower since the week of the general election in May.
After the Federal Reserve increased interest rates for the first time in almost a decade this month, the risk is that concern about the EU vote will leave the Bank of England lagging further behind its U.S peer, weighing on the pound’s outlook.
INDIA: India’s rupee fell on speculation importers took advantage of its eight-day rally to buy dollars more cheaply to pay month-end bills.
The rupee weakened 0.3% to 66.37 a dollar as of 10:51 a.m. in Mumbai, prices from local banks compiled by Bloomberg show. It climbed 1.4% in the last eight days, the longest run of gains since June 2011. The currency has risen 0.5% in December in the second-best performance in Asia excluding Japan.
“Importers perhaps found the levels attractive to accumulate dollars,” said Navin Raghuvanshi, a Mumbai-based foreign-exchange trader at DCB Bank Ltd. The increased foreign-investment limits for Indian bonds are expected to bring inflows and that’ll be positive for the rupee, he said.
Macro Economic Indicators
Inflation rate (Y-o-Y) for November 2015 9.37%
Monetary Policy Rate current 11.00%
FX Reserves (Bn $) as at December 17, 2015 29.341
Money Market Highlights
NIBOR (%)
O/N 1.0150
30 Day 9.0981
90 Day 10.8002
180 Day 12.9468
LIBOR (%)
USD 1 Month 0.4219
USD 2 Months 0.5128
USD 3 Months 0.6031
USD 6 Months 0.8273
Benchmark Yields
Tenor Maturity Yield (%)
91d 24-Mar-16 3.38
182d 16-Jun-16 6.18
364d 15-Dec-16 7.51
2y 31-Aug-17 7.91
3y 30-May-18 9.08
5y 13-Feb-20 11.08
Indicative Currency Exchange Rates
Bid Offer
USDNGN 197.00 199.50
EURUSD 1.0869 1.1071
GBPUSD 1.4802 1.5004
USDJPY 120.37 120.40
USDCHF 0.9838 0.9939
GBPEUR 1.3483 1.3687
USDZAR 15.1677 15.3710