By Adedapo Adesanya
Despite the improved supply of foreign exchange (FX), the Naira depreciated against he United States Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Monday by 0.15 per cent or N2.38 to settle at N1,603.16/$1, in contrast to the preceding session’s N1,600.78/$1.
The turnover for the trading day stood at $359.22 million compared with last Friday’s $350.72 million, representing a rise of 2.4 per cent or $8.50 million.
However, the domestic currency witnessed a flat outcome against the British currency and the Euro on the first trading day of the week at N2,153.90/£1 and N1,800.79/€1, respectively.
Last week, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Yemi Cardoso, said the Naira is “gradually returning” due to the bank’s effort at ensuring stability.
“The confidence in the Naira is gradually returning as a result of the policies we are already undertaking, which goes back to the whole issue of orthodox monetary policy, that is really what begins to encourage people to hold onto the Naira,” he said at the World Bank Nigeria development update in Abuja.
In the black market yesterday, the Nigerian Naira lost N5 against the greenback to settle at N1,720/$1 compared with the previous day’s value of N1,715/$1.
As for the cryptocurrency market, it was majorly negative with investors and traders going on a profit-taking spree that led to benchmarked tokens ending southwards.
Litecoin (LTC) recorded a 3.8 per cent loss to trade at $71.05, Ethereum (ETH) dropped by 3.1 per cent to $2,653.81, and Bitcoin (BTC) declined by 2.1 per cent to settle at $67,621.45.
Further, Binance Coin (BNB) slid by 1.7 per cent to sell at $598.36, Dogecoin (DOGE) shed 1.5 per cent to close at $0.1461, Solana (SOL) slumped by 1.3 per cent to trade at $168.46, Ripple (XRP) fell by 1.3 per cent to $0.5441, and Cardano (ADA) went down by 0.6 per cent to $0.3671, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.
Dipo Olowookere