Value of Naira Rises 0.04% at Spot Market, Falls at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The value of the Naira to the US Dollar moved in different directions at the various segments of the foreign exchange (forex) market on Thursday, September 15.

In the Investors and Exporters (I&E) market window, the Naira appreciated by 0.04 per cent or 17 Kobo against the greenback to close at N436.33/$1 compared with the previous day’s N436.50/$1.

The loss was triggered by the pressure on the local currency during the session as the FX trades jumped by 79.2 per cent or $5225 million to $118.20 million from the $65.95 million reported on Wednesday.

Also, at the parallel market, the domestic currency depreciated by N2 or 0.28 per cent to settle at N711/$1 in contrast to the preceding session’s N709/$1.

However, the exchange rate of the Nigerian currency with its American counterpart remained unchanged yesterday in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) forex segment at N717/$1.

But in the interbank segment, the Naira appreciated against the Euro on Thursday by N7.67 to close at N428.82/€1 versus N436.49/€1 and on the Pound Sterling, the domestic currency gained N9.55 to close at N493.40/£1 versus N502.95/£1.

As for the digital currency market, it was a bearish affair as a majority of the coins were in red, led by Ethereum (ETH), which saw its value go down by 8.2 per cent to sell at $1,472.01.

This happened despite its biggest-ever upgrade known as the merge taking effect, in what has been poised as a game changer for the entire cryptocurrency sector. The merge, which is designed to cut the cryptocurrency’s energy consumption by more than 99 per cent, has been tagged as a success.

The very first proof-of-stake block of transactions has been finalised with a nearly 100 per cent client participation rate. This was, by far, the best-case scenario. However, prices have gone down amid this.

Litecoin (LTC) dropped 5.2 per cent to trade at $56.12, Ripple (XRP) retreated by 2.9 per cent to $0.3285, Dogecoin (DOGE) declined by 1.4 per cent to $0.0595, Bitcoin (BTC) slumped by $1.1 per cent to $19,831.41, Binance Coin (BNB) shrank by 0.7 per cent to $272.71, Solana (SOL) dipped by 0.4 per cent to sell at $32.96, while Cardano (ADA) recorded a 0.3 per cent slump to sell at $0.4677.

Still, both US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) retained parity in their values as they were sold for $1.00.