Business Teachings & Principles Barclays kenneth.ashigbey December 23, 2011 0 Comments

Financial Highlights for the Day from Barclays Bank Ghana

Highlights:

* Local Money Market: The O/N money market remains awash with excess liquidity though cash withdrawals ahead of the Christmas holidays are growing. O/N AIBOR dropped 46bps to 6.19% in yesterday’s session. Tradable rates may edge down further in today’s session as there are no takers on the market.

* Economic Data: In line with our forecasts, the MPC of the Central Bank keep its Monetary Policy Rate unchanged at 12.50% yesterday.

* Local FX Market: GHS remained flat versus the greenback in yesterday’s session to close $1.6365/90. We expect USD/GHS to trade range bound $1.6350-$1.6420 in today’s session with local corporate demand ebbed ahead of the yuletide.

* Euro: The euro was on the defensive against the dollar on Thursday, having shed all the week’s gains as investors doubted a massive 489 billion euro tender by the European Central bank (ECB) would solve the EU debt crisis.

* Gold: Gold prices traded steady on Thursday, after European Central Bank tender failed to boost market confidence in the euro zone’s ability to tackle its debt crisis and knocked gold off a one-week high in the previous session. Spot gold edged down 0.1 percent to $1,613.05 an ounce at the time of writing.

*Oil: Brent futures were steady above $107 a barrel on Thursday, as investors weighed a sharp drop in U.S.crude stocks against persistent worries that the euro debt crisis would curtail global oil demand. Brent crude slipped 17 cents to $107.54 a barrel in early trades .

*Cocoa: U.S cocoa futures were marginally firmer Wednesday on light investors’ sales while Arabica coffee dropped. Cocoa futures for March rose $3 to $2,188 a tonne.