US-based media firm, Bloomberg has predicted a continuous slide in the Naira in 2024, the currency’s worst performance since 1999.
According to Bloomberg market analysis, the naira has dropped 55% this year, falling around 1,043 per dollar as of Thursday. This puts it in third place among 151 currencies tracked by Bloomberg, after only the Lebanese pound and the Argentine peso.
The Bloomberg prediction comes less than 24 hours after the Naira fell to a new low against the dollar at the official market on Thursday, December 28th, 2023, at N1,043.09 per dollar.
This marks a huge decrease of 16.35% from its prior closing rate, indicating a concerning trend just three days before 2024.
Also, this is the second time the Naira has breached the N1,000/$ level, indicating a significant depreciation and raising concerns about the economy’s impact.
This represents a 19.54 per cent decline from the N872.59/$ it closed on Wednesday according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange.
AMBusiness recalls that on December 8, the naira fell to an all-time low of N1,099.05/$ on the I&E window.
Before crashing below N1,000 on Thursday, the official market began trading at N920/$, hitting a high of N1235.65/$ and a low of N720/$ before closing trading at N1043.09/$.
The market study also revealed that the foreign reserve has reached a six-year low, owing primarily to pending short-term offshore liabilities.
The Central Bank’s annual financial statement, released in August, mentions two $7 billion securities lending arrangements with JP Morgan Chase & Co. in 2021, as well as two $500 million agreements with Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
JP Morgan also assessed Nigeria’s net foreign exchange reserves to be around $3.7 billion, substantially lower than the announced net value of $14 billion at the end of 2021.
“Based on data from the audited financial reports, we estimate that CBN’s net FX reserves were around US$3.7 billion at the end of last year, from US$14.0 billion at the end of 2021,” the financial service firm stated.”
