Pressure Mounts on Naira, Sells at N499/$1 at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The journey of the Nigerian Naira into the N500/$1 region at the unregulated segment of the foreign exchange (forex) market is just a step away.

On Thursday, the Naira was at the borderline as the recent FX liquidity squeeze in the system caused by the devaluation of the currency by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) further crushed the local currency against the greenback by N1 to sell at N499/$1 at the black market.

At the preceding trading day, the domestic was sold against the United States Dollar at N498/$1 but the pressure mounting on the Naira lately weakened it and there are strong indications that it would hit N500/$ on Friday (today) or next week.

Against the British Pound Sterling, the Naira dropped by N3 at the parallel market as it sold at N703/£1 compared to N700/£1 of the preceding session and lost N4 against the Euro to quote at N602/€1 in contrast to the previous day’s N598/€1.

At the interbank segment of the forex market, the local currency appreciated by 2 kobo against the American currency, trading at N410.20/$1 as against the previous day’s N410.22/$1.

A look at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the market showed that the Nigerian currency appreciated by 16 kobo or 0.04 per cent against the US Dollar to close at N410.90/$1 in contrast to N411.06/$1 it ended at the previous session.

The domestic currency recorded the growth despite a rise in the turnover recorded at the specialised FX segment for investors.

The value of transactions yesterday rose by 14.2 per cent or $23.24 million to $140.76 million from the preceding session’s $164.00 million.

At the cryptocurrency market, Business Post observed that the Bitcoin (BTC) improved by 2.5 per cent on Thursday to trade at N19,369,726.21. The Dash (DASH) gained 3.9 per cent to sell at N104,998.00, while Litecoin (LTC) rose by 2.6 per cent to N99,756.01.

However, it was a bad day for the Ethereum (ETH) as its value went down by 1.6 per cent to N1,425,984.00. Tron (TRX) edged downward by 0.9 per cent to N39.94, the United States Dollar Tether (USDT) lost 0.3 per cent to sell for N508.54, while Ripple (XRP) lost 0.1 per cent to sell at N526.95.