Local Currency Weakens to N506/$1 at Parallel Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The local currency weakened against the United States Dollar by N1 at the parallel market on Friday, selling at N506/$1 in contrast to N505/$1 it closed at the preceding trading session.

The usual weekend rush for Dollar at the unregulated segment of the foreign exchange (forex) market may have contributed to the poor performance of the domestic currency at the market yesterday.

However, the Naira traded flat against the Pound Sterling at N708/£1 and also remained unchanged against the Euro at the same black market during the final session for the week at N596/€1.

But at the Investors and Exchange (I&E) window, the Naira appreciated against the greenback by 82 kobo or 0.20 per cent to trade at N410.38/$1 compared with N411.20/$1 it was exchanged on Thursday.

It was observed that the local currency appreciated against the American currency yesterday as a result of a sufficient supply of FX at the market to meet the requests of customers despite the turnover still being high, though lower than the previous session.

Data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange indicated that transactions worth $116.55 million were made on Friday, 5.8 per cent or $7.14 million lower than the $123.69 million recorded at the preceding session.

However, the exchange rate of the Naira to the US Dollar at the interbank segment of the market remained unchanged yesterday at N410.13/$1.

As for the digital currency market, there were no signs that the recent dip was subsiding as six of the seven tokens tracked by Business Post on the trading platform, Quidax, were in the red zone.

Dash (DASH) was the only price riser yesterday as it appreciated by 0.2 per cent to sell at N59,103.01.

Bitcoin (BTC) lost 0.8 per cent to close at N15,945,718.376, Ethereum (ETH) dipped by 6.5 per cent to close at N975,002.00, while Ripple (XRP) went down by 6.9 per cent to trade at N291.21.

In addition, Litecoin (LTC) declined by 4.8 per cent to trade at N59,110.00, Tron (TRX) fell by 4.8 per cent to sell at N28.75, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) depreciated by 0.8 per cent to trade at N515.12.