Naira Trades N1,675/$1 at Official Market, N1,750/$1 at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira fell by 2.7 per cent or N44.32 against the US Dollar at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEX) on Thursday, October 31, to settle the last day of October at N1,675.49/$1, in contrast to the preceding day’s N1,631.17/$1.

Equally, the value of the Naira weakened against the Pound Sterling in the official market yesterday by N3.75 to sell at N2,147.15/£1 compared with the preceding session’s N2,143.40/£1.

In the same vein, the local currency performed woefully against the Euro at NAFEM, where it depreciated N9.29 to quote at N1,791.36/€1 versus midweek’s closing rate of N1,782.07/€1.

Data showed a rise in FX supply to the spot market yesterday, with turnover increasing by 29.2 per cent or $37.63 million to $166.61 million from the $128.98 million recorded on Wednesday.

Similarly, the Nigerian Naira suffered a N5 loss against the greenback in the black market during the trading session to finish at N1,750/$1 compared with the previous day’s rate of N1,745/$1.

As for the cryptocurrency market, things turned bearish as investors and traders were on edge following growing uncertainty around the result of next week’s US presidential election.

Market watchers attributed the crypto slump to shrinking odds for a victory for crypto-friendly Republican candidate Donald Trump. On crypto betting site Polymarket, Trump’s chances of winning tumbled to just 61 per cent on Thursday from 67 per cent earlier this week. The victory odds for Democrat Kamala Harris have surged to 39 per cent from 33 per cent.

Dogecoin (DOGE) slipped by 6.8 per cent to $0.1597, Ethereum (ETH) depreciated by 5.2 per cent to $2,509.75, Solana (SOL) slumped by 4.6 per cent to trade at $167.09, Cardano (ADA) shed 4.2 per cent to finish at $0.3412, Bitcoin (BTC) went down by 3.8 per cent to $69,506.61, Litecoin (LTC) tumbled by 3.2 per cent to $69.11, Binance Coin (BNB) shed 2.2 per cent to settle at $577.93, and Ripple (XRP) dropped 0.8 per cent to quote at $0.5167, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00 each.