Tue, 28 Feb 2017 11:08:15 +0000
By BUUMBA CHIMBULU
THE Kwacha has continued with its positive run against the dollar as supply continued to outweigh demand.
The positive performance is also coupled with a general weakness in the greenback which weakened against a number of major convertibles during the Friday trading session.
Cavmont Bank Zambia daily market report indicated that the local currency has continued to gain grounds against the dollar in the past few weeks.
According to the report, the local currency opened the day trading at K9.540 / K9.590, later touching an intra-day high of K9.470 / K9.520.
Further progress was however shortened after an increase in demand from importers.
The local currency later closed its Friday trading session at K9.500 / K9.550, K0.04 stronger than the day’s opening levels.
It was however likely to trade at the current levels in the short term.
On the money market, Cavmont report indicated that commercial banks’ aggregate current account balance increased by K650.60 million to K2,280.75 million while the overnight borrowing and lending rate increased by 0.02 percent to 15.47 percent.
Total funds therefore traded on Interbank during the session were K148.20 million.
Meanwhile, the bank reported that yield rates in Friday’s Government bonds auction dropped across all tenors.
On the London Metal Exchange (LME), copper prices which had been recovering suffered a slight setback of US$102.5 during the Friday trading session.
As of Friday last week, an ounce of the red metal was trading at US$5,905.50.
Prices of Brent crude oil also went down by US$0.49, resulting to a barrel trade at US$56.19.
On the other hand, an ounce of gold was currently trading at US$1,256.45 after the prices went up by US$14.37.
