Modeling Volatility and Daily Exchange Rate Movement in Nigeria

Abstract

This study modeled volatility and daily exchange rate movement in Nigeria with daily exchange rate between Nigeria Naira and US Dollar from January 2, 2001 to May 20, 2019 collected from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The results of the estimated models revealed that conditional variance (volatility) has positive and significant relationship with exchange rate returns between Nigeria Naira and US Dollars, which corroborates the theory that predicts positive relationship between return and volatility for risk averse investors. Also found that exchange rate volatility between Naira / US Dollar is persistent. It was also discovered that goods news produces more volatility than bad news of equal magnitude. The researchers therefore suggested that the Central Bank of Nigeria should always proffer timely intervention to reduce the volatility persistence. This will go a long way to counteract or moderate the excess volatility between Naira and US Dollar transactions.