Local Currency Flat at I&E, Gains at P2P, Loses on the Streets

By Adedapo Adesanya

The value of the local currency against the United States currency moved in different directions on Tuesday, as there seems to be stability in the dust raised recently by the Department of State Services (DSS) in its attempt to arrest the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele.

The exchange rate of the Naira to the Dollar was flat in the official market, which is the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window but appreciated in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) segment and depreciated in the parallel market arm of the foreign exchange (FX) market.

In the P2P window, the domestic currency appreciated by N1 against its American counterpart yesterday by N1 to trade at N756/$1 compared with the previous day’s N757/$1, and on the streets, which is the black market, it lost N2 against the Dollar to close at N745/$1, in contrast to Monday’s rate of N743/$1.

In the spot market, the Nigerian Naira remained unchanged at N461.50/$1 amid a significant drop in the demand for forex during the session.

Transactions worth $55.52 million were executed during the session, 72.0 per cent or $143.08 million lower than the $198.60 million worth of transactions carried out a day earlier.

Also, in the interbank segment, the Naira closed flat against the Pound Sterling and the Euro on Tuesday at N554.07/£1 and N491.72/€1, respectively.

In the cryptocurrency market, there was a pullback as investors banked on profits following signs of cooling inflation. This was also supported by better-than-expected Chinese gross domestic product (GDP) figures. The economic release comes as US traders also returned to action following the observation of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration on Monday.

Litecoin (LTC) went up by 1.1 per cent to trade at $87.54, Binance Coin (BNB) added 0.9 per cent to sell for $302.42, Ripple (XRP) grew by 0.8 per cent to $0.3926, Bitcoin (BTC) appreciated by 0.6 per cent to $21,322.14, and Cardano (ADA) rose by 0.2 per cent to trade at $0.3517.

On the flip side, Solana (SOL) slid by 1.2 per cent to $23.27, Dogecoin (DOGE) declined by 0.3 per cent to sell at $0.0839, and Ethereum (ETH) dropped 0.1 per cent to $1,582.39.

Meanwhile, the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) traded flat at $1.00 each.