Nigerian naira eases after dollar inflows disappoint

Nigeria's naira eased against the U.S. currency on Monday, with last week's move by JP Morgan to include the country's 10-year bond in one of its indexes failing to stimulate strong dollar inflows.
The local unit closed at 162.07 naira to the dollar, compared with Friday's close of 161.98 naira, the same level it closed on Thursday prior to JP Morgan's announcement.
The 2024 bond is due to be added to JP Morgan's Government Bond Index-Emerging Markets (GBI-EM) on Aug. 29, in addition to five other bonds already listed, potentially triggering more offshore interest.
But dealers said local bond trading was muted on Monday due to a holiday in Britain, where a number of foreign investors who trade Nigerian debt are based. Yields on the 2024 bond climbed to 11.99 percent, as against 11.92 percent on Friday.
Citibank said in a note it expected the naira to get support from potential oil company dollar sales and foreign portfolio inflows this week.
The local unit of Italian oil firm Eni sold $12 million on Monday, to start the month-end dollar sales.