By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira was strengthened against United States Dollar in the black market, the Peer-2-Peer (P2P), and the Investors and Exporters (I&E) windows of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Monday, June 13.
The currency market reacted positively to the ouster of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, from office by President Bola Tinubu last Friday.
The embattled central banker is currently in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) after he was arrested over the weekend. The details of the investigation remain vague.
According to analysts, the Nigerian markets are getting a breather from his unfriendly monetary policies, including a currency redesign that plunged businesses and individuals into chaos.
With the return of the market, there appears to be fresh confidence as the forex market, as well as the stock market, posting positive outcomes.
At the official market, the Naira gained by 0.18 per cent or 83 Kobo against the greenback to close at N471.67/$1 versus N472.50/$1 of the preceding session despite an increase in FX trades by 32.5 per cent or $37.36 million to $114.78 million from $77.42 million.
Equally, in the P2P window, the local currency appreciated against the US Dollar by N1 yesterday to close at N768/$1 compared with the previous trading session’s N769/$1.
Similarly, the domestic currency gained N15 against its American counterpart in the parallel market to sell for N750/$1, in contrast to the preceding trading day’s rate of N765/$1.
In the interbank segment of the market, the Naira closed flat against the Pound Sterling and the Euro to close at N577.28/£1 and N495.68/€1, respectively.
In the cryptocurrency market, there was a moderate outcome recorded among benchmarked tokens on Monday after a widely-watched inflation gauge bolstered traders’ belief that the Federal Reserve could skip raising rates at a key meeting later this week.
The US Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 4 per cent in the 12 months through May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said Wednesday.
However, Bitcoin (BTC) remained in the $25,000 mark after a 0.2 per cent slide to close at $25,873.90, Ethereum (ETH) dropped 0.1 per cent to $1,739.99, Solana (SOL) made a 1.5 per cent depreciation to sell at $15.00, Cardano (ADA) slid by 0.9 per cent to trade at $0.2747, and Ripple (XRP) slumped by 0.8 per cent to $0.5223.
But Binance Coin (BNB) jumped 4.3 per cent to sell for $241.06, Litecoin (LTC) went up by 0.4 per cent to $77.44, Dogecoin (DOGE) improved by 0.2 per cent to $0.0616, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) traded flat at $1.00 each.
Modupe Gbadeyanka