Currency Speculators Record Heavy Losses over Money Market Instability

Strong indications have emerged that the efforts of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stabilize the Naira may have started yielding fruits.

Feelers from two unnamed officials of the apex bank, indicated that the deployment of a number measures by the bank may have turned the tide in the forex market and led to the suffering of currency hoarders and speculators.

It will be recalled that the apex bank had said that speculators were behind the market burble since upper week which made foolery of the Naira sending it crashing to an all-time low of N400 to the US dollar.

The CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had accused speculators who connived with bureau de change operators to undermine the efforts of the bank at propping up the Naira and warned that such speculators would eventually be punished by the market.

On Wednesday, the Naira at the parallel market exchanged for about N295, a further improvement on the N305 to the dollar on Tuesday, garnering over N100 gain on the panic by speculators struggling to cut their losses. Some parallel market operators revealed that they bought from sellers at the rate of N272 and sold at N295.

A large number of the sellers who had suffered huge losses admitted that they had bought at the rate of N380 hoping to sell at N400 before the sudden turn in fortunes.