Naira Falls to N902.45/$1 at Official Market, N1,355/$1 at Parallel Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira recorded a slight decline against the United States currency in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Friday, January 19.

During the last trading session of the week, the value of the Nigerian currency slumped by 0.04 per cent or 33 Kobo to close at N902.45/$1 compared with Thursday’s closing price of N902.08/$1.

Also, the domestic currency performed badly against the Pound Sterling in the official market yesterday by N1.12 to wrap the day at N1,129.27/£1 compared with the preceding day’s N1,128.15/£1 and against the Euro, the Nigerian currency shed N2.02 to settle at N969.69/€1 versus the previous day’s exchange rate of N967.67/€1.

Data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange showed that the value of forex transactions on Friday depreciated by 39.5 per cent or $30.64 million to $145.89 million from the $176.53 million recorded in the previous trading session.

Similarly, in the parallel market, the local currency weakened against the US Dollar by N15 on Friday to sell for N1,355/$1 versus the previous day’s value of N1,340/$1.

However, the Naira appreciated against the Dollar in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window by N10 yesterday to trade at N1,337/$1, in contrast to Thursday’s exchange rate of N1,347/$1.

The cryptocurrency market recorded a largely bullish outcome as Bitcoin (BTC) moved to recover after falling to the lowest price level since the US approved the much expected exchange-traded funds (ETFs), gaining 0.9 per cent to sell for $41,616.84, and  Ethereum (ETH) improved by 0.7 per cent to $2,477.71.

Also, Litecoin (LTC) surged by 5.6 per cent to $72.24, Cardano (ADA) appreciated by 1.6 per cent to $0.5056, Dogecoin (DOGE) grew by 0.9 per cent to $0.0786, Binance Coin (BNB) went up by 0.4 per cent to $313.26, and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) rose by 0.04 per cent to $0.9994.

But Solana (SOL) slumped by 1.6 per cent to trade at $92.61, and Ripple (XRP) dropped 1.1 per cent to finish at $0.5447, while the US Dollar Coin (USDC) closed flat at $1.00.