Currency News [August 6, 2024]

The Cedi opened the first official trading day of 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 (oanda.com) as the local currency continues to show some resilience following improving forex inflows from some of Ghana’s bilateral partners. The Cedi’s performance comes in the wake of the affirmation of Ghana’s Long-Term Foreign-Currency (LTFC) Issuer Default Rating (IDR) at ‘RD’ (Restrictive Default) while the sovereign’s Long-Term Local-Currency (LTLC) IDR was also ranked at ‘CCC’ by international rating organization, Fitch.

Despite Ghana remaining in junk status, Fitch noted that the nation had made some significant headway in its Common Framework debt restructuring process. This development is expected to boost the Cedi’s appeal in the near term. However, this great fate is likely to be short-lived on the back of the upcoming interest payment on the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme bonds which is likely to see offshore investors repatriate their investment proceeds.

On the BoG inter-bank trading platform, the Cedi fell by 1.05% and 2.01% to trade at GHS 14.9986 and GHS 16.3842 on the first official trading day of the week from last week’s opening trade values of GHS 14.8432 and GHS 16.0618 against the Dollar and the Euro respectively. Against the Pound, the Cedi built on last week’s gains as it opened the week, up by 0.14%, having traded at GHS 19.0482 from last week’s opening trade quote of GHS 19.0750. The Pound slipped against a basket of trading pairs in the wake of the Bank of England’s decision to cut interest rates last week.

On the Open Forex Market (oanda.com), the Cedi surged by 0.13% and 0.77% to open the week at trade values of GHS 15.5026 and GHS 19.8052 from last week’s opening trade quotes of GHS 15.5233 and GHS 19.9591 against the Dollar and the Pound respectively. The Dollar was weakened against some of its trading pairs following weaker-than-expected US jobs data along with disappointing earnings reports from large technology firms which raised the prospect of a US economic downturn and bigger interest rate cuts by the Fed. Against the Euro, the Cedi tumbled by 0.99% to trade at GHS 16.9730 at the week’s opening from last week’s opening trade value of GHS 16.8221.

The Cedi was quoted at GHC 11.8859 on the first trading day of the year against the Dollar and is currently being sold at GHS 14.9986 indicating a year-to-date (YTD) loss of 26.16% on the BoG inter-bank trading platform. It is also being quoted at GHS 15.5026 on the Open Forex Market (oanda.com) after opening the year at GHS 11.9945 indicating a YTD loss of 29.25%.