This update features several short articles. Under the heading: Foreign Exchange – the Naira’s significant depreciation by 11.2% is discussed which escalated from N335/$ on February 12th to N370/$ on February 19th, 2016 at the parallel market segment of the forex market. The next short article discusses Nigeria’s inflation rate which remained above CBN’s bandwidth of 6-9 per cent. Specifically, the inflation rate increased slightly from 9.55 percent in December 2015 to 9.62 percent in January 2016. The next heading – Crude Oil Price – talks about the OPEC weekly basket price which increased by 7.32 percent from $27.04 on February 12th to $29.02 on February 19th, 20166 . The increase in the price of crude oil was driven by speculations about a likely bilateral agreement between Saudi Arabia and Russia that aims to freeze oil production and support oil prices. The next heading Stock Market Prices – discusses the All-Share Index (ASI) and Market Capitalization which depreciated by 1.04% between February 12th and February 19th 2016. The ASI dropped from 24,689.69 points to close at 24,432.51 points, while the Market Capitalization declined from N8.491 trillion to N8.403 trillion in the same period.
