Nigeria's naira falls to new record low, South African rand rallies to two-month high

Nigeria's naira fell to a new record low on Friday despite rebounding crude prices, while the South African rand traded near a two-month high with the dollar showing weakness after seven straight months of gains.

USD/NGN rallied to 192.45 on Friday, close to the 28 January record of 192.65, and up 1.2% on the day. The pair has strengthened about 4.8% so far this year.

Since the currency devaluation in November, it has risen more than 16%, meaning ther naira has declined 14%.

Nigerian inflation rate has picked up to 8% as per December data while GDP growth has eased to 6.23% from a year earlier in the third quarter. The November CPI rate was 7.9% and the Q2 GDP growth was 6.54%.

The Nigerian central bank left its key rate unchanged at 13% at the 20 January meeting. It had hiked the rate 100 basis points in the November review in order to stabilise the economy and currency amid the sharp slide in crude prices.

Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and gets 70% of its revenues from oil exports. The naira is under pressure due to the slide in oil prices since June last year.

The South African currency on the other hand, has been on an upward trend since mid-December. After hitting a multi-year high of 11.8175, the USD/ZAR pair turned south and has touched 11.2566, its lowest since 5 December.

That means a 3.4% rally in the South African currency so far this month, also aided by a 1.6% decline in the USD index.

South African inflation rate has eased to 5.3% in December from 5.8% as per the 21 January data, and the country's central bank left the main rate at 5.75% at the 29 January review.

All eyes are on the US non-farm payroll data due at 13:30 GMT. The market consensus is for job addition to decrease to 234,000 from 252,000 in December, while the unemployment rate to stay at 5.6%.