By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira depreciated against the United States Dollar at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Wednesday.
At the midweek session, the exchange rate of the Nigerian currency to its American counterpart was N416.50/$1 compared with N416.00/$1 it closed on Tuesday. This indicated that the value of the Naira depreciated by 0.12 per cent or 50 kobo.
This occurred as the demand for forex rose at the spot market by 37.4 per cent or $35.56 million to $130.73 million from the $95.17 million recorded the previous session, according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange.
It was observed that the domestic currency also depreciated against the British Pound Sterling at the session by 83 kobo as it was sold at N564.68/£1 compared with N563.85/£1 and against the Euro, the local currency lost 73 kobo to trade at N474.12/€1 in contrast to N472.39/€1 it was exchanged on Tuesday.
At the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) market, the value of the Naira to the Dollar went down by N1 to close at N574/$1 in contrast to N573/$1 it was exchanged at the last session.
Meanwhile, the crypto market was mixed on Wednesday with seven of the 10 digital coins monitored by Business Post across the various trading platforms ending in the negative territory.
The three gainers were led by Ripple (XRP), which appreciated 1.3 per cent to close at N497.44 as Dash (DASH) climbed by 1.2 per cent to trade at N47,773.33 and Ethereum (ETH) grew by 0.1 per cent to sell for N1,824,024.19.
But Litecoin (LTC) lost 1.4 per cent to sell at N74,597.26, Cardano (ADA) went down by 1.3 per cent to N642.30, Dogecoin (DOGE) made a 0.9 per cent loss as it traded at N87.59, while Bitcoin (BTC) fell by 0.5 per cent to close at N25,473,733.45.
Further, Binance Coin (BNB) recorded a decline of 0.3 per cent to finish at N177,625.20, Solana (SOL) saw a 0.2 per cent depreciation to sell at N61,379.06, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) declined by 0.1 per cent to settle at N582.70.
Modupe Gbadeyanka