Naira continues to Fall speedily, now @ N176 per dollar

The nation’s currency, the naira, continued its falling spree yesterday as it went down 1.2 percent to N176 per dollar, making the fourth day of decline. This is against N174.15 that it exchanged the previous day.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange All Share Index (ASI) also lost 2.1 percent to 33,428.76 in the worst performance among 93 primary indexes tracked by Bloomberg.

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is meeting next week to review interest rates in Africa’s biggest economy.

The selloff came as investors weighed potential outcomes of an Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting next week, with Morgan Stanley saying a production cut looks increasingly likely.

Nigeria is an OPEC member and crude oil exports account for about 70 percent of government revenue.

Foreign reserves dropped 2 percent this month, as the CBN sold dollars to lenders to stem the naira’s slide. The regulator may increase its key rate from 12 percent next week to support the currency, according to ETM Analytics.

- BusinessDay