By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira closed the week on a strong foot against the United States Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) segment of the foreign exchange (FX) on Friday, February 2, as a flush of FX entered into the market following efforts by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to boost liquidity.
According to data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange, the local currency appreciated against the greenback yesterday by 1.8 per cent or N57.54 to sell for N1,4535.53/$1 compared with the preceding day’s value of N1,461.90/$1.
However, the Naira depreciated against the Pound Sterling in the official market during the session by N64.12 to settle at N1,790.71/£1 versus Thursday’s closing price of N1,726.59/£1 and against the Euro, it shrank by N55.31 to trade at N1,530.65/€1, in contrast to the preceding session’s N1,475.34/€1.
It was observed that the supply of forex into the spot market improved on Friday by $284.27 or 182.4 per cent to $440.13 million from $155.86 million.
The market has been faced with supply woes and a mounting backlog that is worrying investors. However, recent policy moves by the CBN has seen the market work towards stability with one of the directives was warning banks to sell their excess Dollar to stop them from hoarding for profit.
The CBN mandates that banks’ Net Open Position (NOP) must not exceed 20 per cent short or 0 per cent long of the bank’s shareholders’ funds.
A look at the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) forex window, the value of the Nigerian currency slumped against the US Dollar yesterday by N58 to quote at N1,409/$1 compared with the previous day’s N1,351/$1.
But in the black market, the Nigerian currency further improved its value against its American currency by N50 to trade at N1,410/$1, in contrast to the N1,460/$1 it was traded a day earlier.
Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market saw Bitcoin (BTC) rise by 0.3 per cent to $43,174.11 as traders were eager to find out whether the next few weeks would see the bull run continue or if there was more pain ahead.
Cardano (ADA) recorded a 1.7 per cent increase to sell at $0.5171, Ethereum (ETH) went up by 0.9 per cent to $2,321.74, Litecoin (LTC) grew by 0.5 per cent to $68.24, Solana (SOL) appreciated by 0.2 per cent to $99.47, and Binance Coin (BNB) logged a 0.1 per cent appreciation to trade at $302.37.
On the flip side, Dogecoin (DOGE) made a 0.7 per cent fall to trade at $0.0792, and Ripple (XRP) lost 0.2 per cent to close at $0.5061, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) closed flat at $1.00 each.
Dipo Olowookere