Currency News [August 15, 2022]

The Ghana Cedi slid to fresh lows against its three major trading partner currencies at the start of the week as the Cedi’s woes continue to intensify on both the Bank of Ghana (BoG) inter-bank trading platform and the Open Forex Market. The Cedi’s performance this week comes after Ghana’s credit rating suffered another downgrade, further shutting the country off the international bond market. Fitch Ratings last week sent Ghana’s sovereign credit rating into the junk grade from B- to CCC+ with a negative outlook. This follows a similar downgrade handed down by S&P earlier in the month.

These developments coupled with the ongoing economic hardships have prompted the central bank to call for an emergency monetary policy committee meeting to be held later in the week. It is expected that key on the agenda will be measures to halt the red-hot inflationary trend which rose to a nearly twenty-year high in July. It is also expected that the central bank will announce measures to revamp the local currency and actions to boost the country’s international reserves.

On the BoG inter-bank trading platform, the Cedi was down by 0.77%, 0.45%, and 0.36% against the Dollar, the Pound, and the Euro from GHS 8.0091, GHS 9.7030, and GHS 8.1848 at last week’s open to trade at GHS 8.0711, GHS 9.7467, and GHS 8.2140 respectively at this week’s open. The Dollar edged higher against the Cedi to build on its previous weeks’ gains as global recession fears boosted the greenback’s appeal.

On the Open Forex Market (oanda.com), the Cedi plunged by 4.61%, 4.61%, and 4.75% to open the week trading at GHS 9.1296, GHS 11.0361, and GHS 9.3172 from last week’s opening quotes of GHS 8.7275, GHS 10.5496, and GHS 8.8946 against the Dollar, the Pound, and the Euro respectively. The Pound came in stronger against the Cedi despite data revealing that the UK economy contracted in the second quarter of the year, the first in five quarters.

The Cedi was quoted at GHC 6.0091 on the first trading day of the year against the Dollar and is currently being sold at GHS 8.0711 indicating a year-to-date (YTD) loss of 34.31% on the BoG inter-bank trading platform. It is also presently being quoted at GHS 9.1256 on the Open Forex Market (oanda.com) after opening the year at GHS 6.2112 indicating a YTD loss of 46.98%.