Naira Loses Stability Against Dollar at Black Market, Trades N475/$

By Ahmed Rahma, Adedapo Adesanya

After closing flat against the Dollar at the parallel market for days, the Naira finally succumbed to pressure on Friday, depreciating by N2.

Business Post reports that the value of the local currency went down to N475/$1 at the close of transactions yesterday from the previous day’s N477/$1.

However, the Nigerian currency still maintained its stability against Pound Sterling and the Euro at the same unregulated segment of the foreign exchange market on Friday, trading at N648/£1 and N580/€1 respectively.

At the Investors & Exporters (I&E) window yesterday, the Naira equally suffered a fall against the greenback despite the low turnover for the day.

It was observed that the local currency, which traded at N394/$1 on Thursday, closed at N394.17/$1 on Friday, indicating 17 kobo or 0.04 per cent decline in value.

As earlier stated, the turnover for the session reduced by $32.47 million or 42.15 per cent to $44.57 million in contrast to the $77.04 million recorded at the preceding session.

But at the interbank segment of the market, the value of the Naira against the US Dollar remained unchanged at the close of business yesterday at N379/$1, while at the Bureaux De Change (BDC) segment of the market, the local currency still traded flat against the greenback at N395/$1.

Meanwhile, after the previous day’s scare, the cryptocurrency market rebounded on Friday and six out of the seven digital coins tracked by Business Post closed in the positive territory.

The renewed interest in Bitcoin caused the token to gain 4.8 per cent yesterday to sell at N15,607,041.30, while Ethereum (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC) both appreciated by 4.3 per cent to trade at N596,401.20 and N67,045.85 respectively.

Dash (DASH) improved by 1.7 per cent to settle at N53,000, Tron (TRX) closed higher by 2.8 per cent to trade at N14.14, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) went up by 0.9 per cent to sell at N488.32.

However, the Ripple (XRP) had a bad day on Friday as a result of the loss of confidence in the embattled token by investors. This weakened the token by 1.4 per cent to close at N131.20.