Naira Value Loses 0.21% at Official Market, Quotes at N1,329/$1

By Adedapo Adesanya

The value of the Naira weakened against the United States Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Tuesday, September 15, by N2.85 or 0.21 per cent to trade at N1,329.15/$1 compared with Monday’s closing value of N1,326.30/$1.

In the same vein, the domestic currency slumped against the Pound Sterling in the official market by N7.56 to close at N1,793.69/£1 versus N1,786.13/£1, and depreciated against the Euro by N5.41 to close at N1,534.77/€1, in contrast to the preceding session’s N1,529.36/€1.

Also, at the GTBank FX desk, the value of the Naira depreciated against the US Dollar during the trading day by N5 to settle at N1,335/$1 compared with the previous day’s N1,330/$1, but at the black market segment, it traded flat at N1,370/$1.

Financial institutions’ activities at the interbank FX window increased to 172 deals from 109 deals, while NFEM interbank FX turnover surged from $95.611 million on Monday to $262.12 million on Tuesday.

Nigeria’s external reserves, which give the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) the ability to support the FX market, continued their upward trajectory, as available data showed a rise to $54.61 billion.

The country has also secured a place in JP Morgan’s Government Bond Index–Emerging Markets Edge (GBI-EM Edge), in a development the federal government says reflects growing investor confidence in the country’s economic reforms.

The Federal Ministry of Finance said JP Morgan, manager of the world’s most widely tracked emerging market bond indices, has assigned Nigeria a 7.40 per cent weighting, one of the highest among the 26 markets covered by the index and close to JP Morgan’s eight per cent maximum country weighting.

In the cryptocurrency market, the majority of benchmarked tokens went south after the US Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act.

The bill went down on a 49-50 cloture vote, the procedural step that needs 60 senators to move legislation to debate, with multiple Republicans voting no.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is already working on its proposed Reg Crypto framework and rules for tokenised securities, which becomes the only route to the certainty the industry wanted from Congress.

Ripple (XRP) crashed by 7.8 per cent to $1.29, Cardano (ADA) dropped by 4.9 per cent to $0.1950, Solana (SOL) tumbled by 4.0 per cent to $97.14, Ethereum (ETH) slipped by 3.9 per cent to $2,399.52, Dogecoin (DOGE) weakened by 3.5 per cent to $0.0801, Bitcoin (BTC) lost 2.1 per cent to exchange at $75,850.22, TRON (TRX) dipped by 0.9 per cent to $0.3344, and Binance Coin (BNB) also fell by 0.9 per cent to $713.57, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) sold flat at $1.00 apiece.