Nigeria’s CBN adjust peg again, naira falls

The Central Bank of Nigeria adjusted its exchange rate peg on Tuesday to 196.95 naira against the dollar from the 196.90 set last week, data on the bank’s website showed.

Nigeria’s OTC Market to make Foray into Interest Rate Derivatives

Within the next five years, dealers in Nigeria’s Over-The-Counter (OTC) fixed income market will make their first inroads into interest rate derivatives deals, BusinessDay can disclose.

This finding follows recent moves by Nigeria’s OTC securities exchange (FMDQ) to commence on its platform, the trading on interest rate derivatives. The Self Regulatory Organisation (SRO) had already commissioned a feasibility study towards the introduction of interest rates and currencies derivatives products within the five-year period (2015-2019).

Sterling Bank’s Q1 profit rises by 25% to N3.9bn

Sterling Bank plc has recorded a 25 percent increase in its profit after tax for the first quarter ended March 31st, 2015, demonstrating the lender’s ability to sustain its growth in spite of industry headwinds. According to key extracts of the results released today at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), which showed appreciable growth in all key performance indices, the Bank’s profit after tax leapt from N3.1bn to N3.9bn year-on-year.

Stock market bows to Forte, Guinness, Nigerian Breweries dictates

…as equities shed N73bn

Nigerian equities market lost about N73bn yesterday as share price loses by Forte Oil plc, Guinness Nigeria plc, Nigerian Breweries plc, Cadbury Nigeria plc, and Unilever Nigeria plc further dragged equities southwards.

No fewer than 25 companies recorded share price gain against 30 losers leading to 0.62 percent decline in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index (ASI).

CBN pointed, External Reserves fall by $1.6bn in March

Data published by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) indicated that the external reserve fell from $31.356 billion on February 27th February to $29.79 billion on Monday, March 30th. This represents 4.9 percent decline.

Consequently, the external reserve has fallen by $4.49 billion or 13 percent since the beginning of the year.

It would be recalled that the continued decline of the external reserve was cited by Fitch credit rating  company, for downgrading Nigeria’s credit rating Outlook to ‘Negative’ from ‘Stable’.