Currency News [November 7, 2022]

Recent actions embarked upon by Ghana’s central bank continued to sustain the local currency as the Ghanaian Cedi opened the week mixed against its three major trading partner currencies on both the Bank of Ghana (BoG) inter-bank trading platform and the Open Forex Market.

The Cedi’s performance comes on the heels of actions taken by the BoG to crack down on illegal forex activities and close nonconforming forex bureaus in a bid to sanitize the forex space to mitigate overly currency speculations. The Cedi’s recent stability has also come on the back of assurances given by the president that bondholders will not suffer losses as part of the IMF bailout negotiations. It is expected that the strong pickup in the demand for forex by importers will trim gains associated with the coming onboard of the first of the US 1.13 billion cocoa syndicated loan facility.

On the BoG inter-bank trading platform, the Cedi traded down by 0.07% and 1.17% against the Dollar and the Euro to begin the week trading at GHS 13.0244 and GHS 13.0176 from last week’s opening trade values of GHS 13.0151 and GHS 12.8674 respectively. The Dollar posted modest gains against the Cedi after the US Fed handed down another 0.75% rate hike, the fourth of such increase in a row. The Cedi pared some of its losses against the Pound, coming in with a gain of 0.25% from last week’s opening trade figure of GHS 14.9622 to open this week at GHS 14.9247.

On the Open Forex Market (oanda.com), the Cedi strengthened by 0.27% and 1.18% as it traded at GHS 14.1066 and GHS 16.1225 to the Dollar and the Pound at this week’s open from last week’s opening quotes of GHS 14.1443 and GHS 16.3145 respectively. The Pound lost to the Cedi and other peers, triggered by a pretty sobering assessment of Britain’s growth outlook by the Bank of England, suggesting the country’s economy was already in recession, which could last two years. Against the Euro, the Cedi fell by 0.36% to trade at GHS 14.0797 at this week’s opening from last week’s opening quote of GHS 14.0288.

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 13.0244 indicating a year-to-date (YTD) loss of 116.74% on the BoG inter-bank trading platform. It is also presently being quoted at GHS 14.1066 on the Open Forex Market (oanda.com) after opening the year at GHS 6.2112 indicating a YTD loss of 127.11%.