Naira Crashes to N1008/$1 at Black Market, N773.54/$1 at Official Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The volatile movement of the Naira against the Dollar continued across the parallel market and the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segments of the foreign exchange (forex) market on Monday, October 6, 2023.

Data harvested by Business Post revealed that the Nigerian Naira crashed against the US Dollar in the black market on the first trading day of the week by N4 to quote at N1,008/$1 compared with the preceding session’s rate of N1,004/$1.

In the official market, the domestic currency depreciated against the greenback by 4.3 per cent or N31.69 to trade at N773.54/$1, in contrast to last Friday’s closing price of N741.85/$1.

The Nigerian currency came under pressure yesterday amid a significant rise in FX demand, with the market turnover increasing by 74.40 per cent or N41.2 million to $96.58 million from $55.38 million, according to data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange.

However, in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window, the local currency appreciated against its American counterpart by N2 to close at N1,010/$1 compared with the preceding session’s exchange rate of N1,012/$1.

In the spot market, the Naira slumped against the Pound Sterling on Mondat by N6.57 to finish at N933.34/£1 versus N926.93/£1 and crashed against the Euro by N4.78 to N806.21/€1 from the previous session’s N801.42/€1.

In a related development, the digital currency market turned red yesterday, as most of the coins tracked by Business Post closed lower, with Ethereum (ETH) going down by 3.4 per cent to $1,579.64 after traders seemed to react to a wallet, apparently belonging to the Ethereum Foundation, selling a portion of its allocated tokens.

During the trading day, Solana (SOL) lost 5.0 per cent to trade at $22.14, Dogecoin (DOGE) depreciated by 3.5 per cent to $0.0589, Litecoin (LTC) fell by 3.4 per cent to $63.06, Ripple (XRP) dropped 3.2 per cent to trade at $0.5019, Binance Coin (BNB) went down by 2.7 per cent to $205.89, Cardano (ADA) declined by 1.6 per cent to $0.2524, and Bitcoin (BTC) shrank by 1.1 per cent to $27,591.72, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) closed flat at $1.00 apiece.