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Jul 4 , 2026

A Calm Rates Quote Hides a Split Forex Market

The Brewed Buck spent last week's foreign-exchange market calmer than the underlying conditions suggested. There was no auction by the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) last week, yet the market did not show the gapping that usually signals shortage-driven repricing. Last week displayed a Birr that...

Jun 27 , 2026

A Forex Auction Softens Pressure Without Moving the Boards

The Birr, the Brewed Buck, did not break in the forex market last week. It sagged across bank boards, revealing pressure rather than panic and leaving the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) with a hard message. Liquidity can be supplied without resetting the price banks post for dollars. The average commercial-bank buying rate for the dollar jumped to 158.58 Br from 157.99 Br, excluding the Central Bank. The average selling rate moved almost in step, to 161.75 from 161.15 Br. In market terms, the Birr lost about 0.37pc of its cash value over six days. In political-economy terms, the movement s...


Jun 21 , 2026

Forex Auction Sends One Signal, Banks Send Another

The Birr (Brewed Buck) refused to fall into line last week, as the cash market for dollars resisted the convergence the Central Bank had tried to engineer. Its latest foreign-exchange auction, held last week, was meant to reset expectations after the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) cancelled the June 9 auction, the first such cancellation since the liberalisation of the forex exchange regime in August 2024. Yet commercial-bank quotations last week demonstrated a market driven less by any tidy auction outcome than by bank caution, dollar scarcity, uneven liquidity and appetite for hard curre...


Jun 14 , 2026

Banks Hold Dollar Rates Steady After Central Bank Cancels Auction

The foreign exchange market opened the week with a contradiction. The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) withdrew from a forex auction after floating 100 million dollars, a decision that would normally have unsettled bank pricing boards. However, commercial banks adjusted posted dollar rates only in decimals and steps, treating the cancelled auction less as a licence to reprice than as a warning not to run ahead of the authorities. Industry sources attributed the cancellation to high buying offers, claiming formal dollar demand may have been ready to clear at levels the Central Bank found unco...

Money Market Watch

Jun 7 , 2026

A Small Slide in the Birr Reveals a Bigger Split Over Dollars

The foreign-exchange market spent the first week of June moving, but not breaking. After weeks without a Central Bank forex auction, the Birr (the Brewed Buck) weakened modestly across commercial-bank...

May 31 , 2026

The Birr Looks Calm, But Banks Fight Over Dollars

The Birr (Brewed Buck) ended May's final week quietly. It barely shifted against the dollar last week. Yet daily cash-rate told a more unsettled story about banks no longer speaking with one voice. ...

May 23 , 2026

Forex Auction Uncovers a Market Under Pressure

Last week, the Birr - Brewed Buck - crossed a line the foreign-exchange market had long treated as a warning, not a price. Commercial banks' cash rates reorganised around a reference point of 160 Br t...

May 17 , 2026

Brewed Buck Looks Steady, But Banks Signal Dollar Stress

The Birr's (Brewed Buck) official cash market looked calm through Saturday, May 16, 2026. But the calm was administrative, not market-driven. With the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) absent from au...

May 9 , 2026

Banks Nudge the Birr, But Dare Not Let It Move

The foreign-exchange board's last week offered a deceptively quiet picture of the market. The implied depreciation was 0.05pc in six days, an unmistakably slow crawl. The calm is striking because t...

May 3 , 2026

A Quiet Forex Market Reveals the Limits of Monetary Reform

The Birr's (Brewed Buck) market passed last week quietly. Beneath it, the week exposed a currency board moving less by price discovery than by administrative habit. With no foreign exchange auction...

Apr 26 , 2026

Brewed Buck Stays Calm, But Not Idle. Stability Mirrors Discipline, Not Necessarily Liquidity

The Birr (Brewed Buck) spent the six days to April 25 doing what often passes for calm in the official foreign exchange market. It barely moved. More than a month after the National Bank of Ethiopia ...

Apr 19 , 2026

In the Forex Market, Stability Masks a Lack of Competition

Last week, the Brewed Buck neither strengthened nor weakened in any meaningful sense. It inched along a carefully managed path, its value against the dollar shaped as much by policy design as by marke...

Apr 5 , 2026

Forex Market Looks Stable But Tightly Managed

The striking feature of the official foreign-exchange market last week was not movement, but restraint. The notable non-news development of recent weeks was that lull. Governor Eyob Tekalegn (PhD) ref...

Mar 28 , 2026

Birr Holds Steady as the Foreign Currency Market Splinters

The Birr (Brewed BucK) looked calm on the surface last week. The week opened with the Central Bank posting the highest buy quote, but it closed with Oromia Bank as the most aggressive commercial bi...

Mar 21 , 2026

Brewed Buck Takes a Small Tumble, the Banks Show Their Feathers

The Birr's (Brewed Buck) official retail market spent last week moving less like a freely shifting market than a carefully managed crawl lower. Across 30 banks, the average buying rate trailed from...

Mar 14 , 2026

Dollar Quotes Rise by Inches as Banks Keep Margins in Line

The foreign-exchange market crept forward last week, but behind the drift, the demand for hard currency and the contest for confidence grew. Between March 9 and March 14, 2026, every commercial bank e...

Mar 7 , 2026

Brewed Buck Slips Quietly as Banks' Forex Boards Split Wide

The Brewed Buck barely moved over the five weeks to March 7, 2026, yet the stillness on the surface concealed a market growing more uneven by the day. Banks' average posted buying rate for the doll...

Feb 28 , 2026

Brewed Buck Continues to Slide, Not Jump, by Design

The forex trading days last week, ending on February 28, 2026, the cash-rate board for the Birr (Brewed Buck) behaved less like a free exchange and more like a controlled march. Across the 30-bank...

Feb 21 , 2026

Undersubscribed Dollar Auction Delivers a Rare Birr Rebound

Central Bank Governor Eyob Tekalegn (PhD) spent last week signalling he was ready to spend currency to steady the Birr, the “Brewed Buck”, and defend the narrow corridor in which it traded. His to...

Feb 15 , 2026

Liberalised Forex Market Still Moves by Decree, Not by Price

Last week's Birr–Dollar moves revealed a market nominally liberalised but still behaving like an administered system. The rate acted more as a benchmark than as a clearing price, with banks trading...


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