Cedi Heads for Five-Month High as Dealers Sell Dollars

Ghana's cedi headed for a more than five-month high as currency traders reduced holdings of dollars.

The currency of the world's second-biggest cocoa producer gained as much as 1.4 percent to 1.4915 per dollar, the biggest intraday gain since Feb. 11, before trading 1.2 percent up at 1.4946 as of 12:52 p.m. in Accra, the capital, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A close at this level will be the highest since Feb. 18.

"Some dealers sold dollars today just to reduce their holdings of the U.S. currency," Biggles Amponsah, a currency trader at the local unit of Access Bank Plc, said in a telephone interview today. "As a strategy, sometimes it is better to hold less of the dollar when you are not sure of the next direction of rates.