29 January 2018, Sweetcrude, Houston, Texas — The local and international financial market products and services update.
NIGERIA: The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has expunged 36 sub-items from the broad list of items that were banned from accessing forex from the apex bank’s official window since 2015. The president of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Frank Udemba-Jacobs, disclosed this at the annual media luncheon with journalists in Lagos. It could be recalled that MAN had sustained a plea with the Federal Government to review the CBN’s foreign exchange policy, which placed ban on importers of 41 items from accessing forex in the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market, noting that some of the items that were restricted from accessing the forex market could not be sourced locally. “The association has done an analysis on the banned items and we broke the 41 items into 110 and of the 110, 75 are raw materials for our members. “It is these 75 items that we ask the Federal Government to remove from the list so that our members can source forex to buy their raw materials,” Jacobs said. Although we are yet to read any circular from the CB
FX: Last week, the total turnover in the I&E window was $1,842.12m. Weekly turnover comparatively is up week-on remain 29%. Flows in the window remain mainly driven by offshore appetite in the fixed income.
FIXED INCOME: Very quiet to end trading last week. Few enquiries in both bills and bonds were from both offshore and locals and skewed 80% to buyers.
Bill auction this week – N6b, N69.5b and N177.2b of the 91, 182 and 364day bills will be offered.
O/N closed circa 5% with money market liquidity just shy of N300bn after Friday’s OMO debits.
E.U: The euro area is set to start the new year the way it ended the old: the economy is strong but inflation is weak.
The region’s fastest growth in a decade will be confirmed this week in a burst of data that should also show economic confidence at the highest since the currency bloc’s early days, unemployment at a post-crisis low, and manufacturing continuing to boom. Yet inflation, the key metric for the European Central Bank, will probably be the slowest in six months.
U.K: British Prime Minister Theresa May faces a fresh challenge pushing her flagship Brexit law through parliament after lawmakers demanded changes only a day before parliament’s upper house begins to debate the legislation.
The House of Lords Constitution Committee said in a report published on Monday that the legislation to end Britain’s European Union membership has “fundamental flaws”, including ministerial powers it considers too sweeping.
“We acknowledge the scale, challenge and unprecedented nature of the task of converting existing EU law into UK law, but as it stands this bill is constitutionally unacceptable,” said committee chairwoman Ann Taylor.
COMMODITIES: The enthusiasm in the oil markets is breaking records.
Hedge funds reported record wagers on continued price increases for both U.S. and global oil benchmarks, along with gasoline and diesel. Meanwhile, producers are hedging production at record rates as oil experiences its best January since 2006.
“There is a lot of interest in the direction of crude oil,” Rob Thummel, managing director at Tortoise Capital Advisors LLC, which handles $16 billion in energy-related assets, said by telephone. “The long oil trade continues to be the place to be.”
Macro Economic Indicators
Inflation rate (Y-o-Y) for December 2017 15.37%
Monetary Policy Rate current 14.00%
FX Reserves (Moving Avg Bn $) as at January 25, 2018, 40,330
Money Market Highlights
NIBOR (%)
O/N 5.9167
30 Day 14.4061
90 Day 15.3806
180 Day 16.3070
LIBOR (%)
USD 1 Month 1.56128
USD 2 Months 1.63475
USD 3 Months 1.74447
USD 6 Months 1.86507
USD 12 Months 1.72400
Benchmark yields
Tenor Maturity Yield (%)
91d 03-May-18 14.46
182d 26-Jul-18 15.34
364d 03-Jan-19 15.84
2y 13-Feb-20 13.75
3y 13-Dec-20 13.47
5y 27-Jan-22 13.10
Indicative Currency Exchange Rates
Bid Offer
USDNGN (I&E) 359.00 360.00
EURUSD 1.2293 1.2495
GBPUSD 1.4024 1.4226
USDJPY 108.89 108.93
GBPEUR 1.1295 1.1499
USDZAR 11.8507 12.0541
EURNGN 445.56 446.92
GBPNGN 507.84 509.24