Friday, 24th January 2014 | Bank of Jamaica intervened in the foreign exchange market for the second day following Thursday’s intervention. In addition to the intervention by selling to the market, the central bank also placed fixed interest securities on the market to absorb unlimited amounts of local and United States currencies. The instruments include offers of BOJ-USD Certificate of Deposit (CD) 2016A for unlimited amounts at a fixed coupon of 4 percent per annum and a BOJ-USD CD 2018A at a fixed coupon of 5 percent per annum.
The local CD instruments have a tenure of 365-days. The initial coupon for the first three months at a GOJ Treasury Bill rate of 7.43 per cent, plus 0.25 percentage point and a CD instrument for 18-months and GOJ Treasury Bill rate of 7.43 per cent, plus 0.27 percentage point.
In actual trading in forex market, dealers bought a total of US$47,685,695 of all currencies traded and sold the equivalent of US$57,450,992. The heavy sales could be connected with the BOJ CD instruments. In the past when these instruments were offered there have been higher sales on the closing day of the offers.
Overall rates slipped across all currencies with the exception of a moderate increase for the selling rate for the British Pound. Authorised dealers bought US$44,391,119 as the rate declined by 8 cents to $106.83 and sold US$54,854,249 as the rate slipped by a cent to $107.18. There was buying of C$914,036, the rate declined by 45 cents to $94.80 and selling of C$480,326 at an average of $96.67 down by 42 cents.
Buying of £970,032 resulted in an average rate of $174.23, which was down by 48 cents and selling amounted to £580,135 at $177.84 each but at 23 cents higher than on Thursday.
Other currencies bought in the equivalent of US$901,412 and US$1,200,855 was sold.
Highs & Lows | The highest buying rate for the US dollar grew by 40 cents to end at $108.20, the lowest buying rate was up by 42 cents to $87.68. The highest selling rate closed unchanged at $110.25 and the low dropped by the same amount it went up by the day before, $10.07 to $87.26.
All the rates for the Canadian dollar fell at the end of trading with the highest buying rate falling 20 cents to end at $97 and the lowest buying rate ended down by $1.25 to $77.19. The highest selling rate was down $1 at $99 and the low fell by a dollar to $93.
The rates for the British Pound were mixed. The highest buying rate for the eased by 30 cents to $178.40 and the lowest buying rate went up 29 cents to $143.59. The highest selling rate fell 45 cents to $181.02 while the lowest selling rate of moved up by 35 cents to $173.
