FX Demand Surge Crashes Naira to N1,361/$ at Official Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira weakened heavily against the United States Dollar by N17.44 or 1.3 per cent in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday, October 23, to N1,361.84/$1 from N1,334.40/$1.

FX demand pressure contributed to the downfall of the Nigerian Naira in the currency market during the session, as data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that interbank forex turnover surged by 219.6 per cent to $1.01 billion from $316.545 million, while the number of FX deals soared by 74.03 per cent to 315 deals from 181 deals.

Also in the official market, the domestic currency depreciated against the Pound Sterling yesterday by N23.18 to N1,821.46/£1 from N1,798.28/£1, and tumbled against the Euro by N18.21 to N1,525.12/€1 from the previous day’s N1,506.41/€1.

At the black market, the Naira lost N10 against the greenback on Friday to quote at N1,370/$1 compared with the previous session’s N1,360/$1, and at the GTBank FX desk, it shed N2 to close at N1,345/$1 versus Thursday’s N1,343/$1.

The Naira is to coming under renewed pressure as importers increase demand for foreign currency ahead of the holiday season, while investors take profits on securities. Market participants said the central bank’s intervention would be necessary to ease the pressure on the local currency.

In the cryptocurrency market, prices went south as traders look to the US Federal Reserve’s October 27-28 meeting, with Brent crude near $113 keeping inflation worries alive, and to exchange-traded fund flows, after US spot bitcoin ETFs lost $635 million on Thursday, following more than $1 billion of inflows over the first three days of the week.

Cardano (ADA) declined by 3.3 per cent to $0.2087, Ripple (XRP) shrank by 2.8 per cent to $1.28, Dogecoin (DOGE) slipped by 2.3 per cent to $0.0779, Solana (SOL) gave up 2.2 per cent to sell at $101.94, Ethereum (ETH) dipped by 0.9 per cent to $2,375.81, Bitcoin (BTC) also fell by 0.9 per cent to $80,732.19, and Binance Coin (BNB) stumbled by 0.9 per cent to $736.01, while TRON (TRX) improved by 0.05 per cent to $0.3295, with the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) flat at $1.00 apiece.