THE shilling has remained steady despite pressure from the greenback and is expected to hold longer as cashew nut season kicks in.
The shilling since the beginning of this month has insignificantly fluctuated by merely 0.009 per cent against the US dollar from 2,319/52 to 2,319/73 yesterday, according to central bank data.
The central bank data also showed that the shilling year-to-date depreciated by 0.004 against the greenback from 2,309/- to 2,319/- yesterday.
NMB Bank said in its daily e-market report that the shilling remained steady despite pressure from the greenback as demand from importers continues to soar with the current thin supply across the market coming mostly from mining and NGO’s.
“Good news ahead, with upcoming cashew season set to kick off at the end of the week,” NMB said.
The market, according to NMB, closed at 2,321/2,360 buying and selling per US dollar.
The Alpha Capital Head of Research and Financial Analytics, Mr Imani Muhingo, said the shilling has been remarkably stable since the beginning of the year.
“[This was] due to the country’s diversified sources of foreign inflows including exports of natural resources and agricultural commodities as well as tourism.
“The shilling has been relatively holding ground against the greenback in the Interbank Foreign Exchange Market with a [minute] depreciation since the beginning of the year,” Mr Muhingo said.
He pointed out one of the factors as the recovery of the tourism sector saw service receipts for the year ending July 2022 stand at 4.14billion US dollars, almost double that of the previous year which stood at 2.5billion US dollars.
Orbit Securities said in its weekly market synopsis that the shilling’s minutely depreciation was caused by the “greenback strengthened against the shilling following rate hikes by the US Fed”.
As the shilling dropped slightly against the US dollar, Ghana’s cedi slumped on Monday to become the world’s worst-performing currency this year.
The currency took its losses this year to more than 45per cent, the most among 148 currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
On the other hand, South Africa’s rand strengthened in early trade on Tuesday, bolstered by improved global market sentiment after a dramatic U-turn in British fiscal policy.
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