By Adedapo Adesanya
An decline in foreign exchange (FX) liquidity did not do much to affect the growth recorded by the Nigerian Naira in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) segment of the market on Friday, February 9.
Business Post reports that the local currency appreciated against the United States Dollar during the day by 0.64 per cent or N9.50 to close at N1,469.97/$1 compared with Thursday’s closing price of N1,479.47/$1, according to data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange.
It was observed that value of forex sales in the spot market yesterday waned by 21 per cent or $67.46 million to $253.77 million from the $321.23 million reported a day earlier.
The market had found comfort as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) continued efforts to stabilise the market. Appearing at the Nigerian Senate on Friday, the Governor of the apex bank, Mr Yemi Cardoso, said that the FX market attracted more than $1 billion in the past two weeks as confidence improved following the central bank’s efforts.
He said there was no relenting to efforts to boost the supply side of the market, and called for ease on the demand front.
However, in the official market, the domestic currency depreciated against the Pound Sterling by N47.22 to close at N1,872.04/£1 versus Thursday’s exchange rate of N1,824.82/£1 and against the Euro, it lost N42.44 to sell for N1,599.06/€1, in contrast to the preceding day’s N1,556.62/€1.
The Naira gained against the greenback in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window yesterday by N2 to settle at N1,468/$1 versus the previous day’s N1,470/$1.
Also, in the black market, the Nigerian currency improved its value against its American counterpart by N10 to trade at N1,490/$1 compared with the previous day’s value of N1,500/$1.
The digital currency market recorded positive movements on Friday, as Solana, the fifth-largest token by market capitalization, reclaimed the $100 level, erasing the price drop when its network suffered an outage of five hours. It gained 4.5 per cent yesterday to sell for $109.67.
In addition, Bitcoin (BTC) rose by 2.5 per cent to $47,355.73, Ethereum (ETH) appreciated by 2.3 per cent to $2,507.03, Ripple (XRP) increased by 1.6 per cent to $0.5254, Binance Coin (BNB) went up by 1.3 per cent to $324.53, Dogecoin (DOGE) expanded by 1.2 per cent to $0.0816, and Cardano (ADA) grew by 0.2 per cent to $0.5388.
But Litecoin (LTC) declined by 0.8 per cent to $70.54, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) closed flat at $1.00 apiece.
Dipo Olowookere