By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira met fresh headwinds across the major segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market as it depreciated against the United States Dollar on Friday, August 27.
At the parallel market, which caters for demands not met at government-regulated channels, the local currency extended its depreciation against the greenback with a loss of N2 to settle at N524/$1 as against the N522/$1 it quoted on Thursday.
Also, the Nigerian currency fell against the Pound Sterling by N1 to sell at N713/£1 compared to N712/£1 it was sold at the previous session.
Similarly, the local currency depreciated against the Euro by N3 to sell at N608/€1 in contrast to N605/€1 it traded previously.
A look at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the market showed that the local currency depreciated by N1.12 or 0.27 per cent on Friday to close at N412/$2 compared with the previous trading session’s rate of N410.88/$1.
During the session, the turnover at the market segment significantly increased by 46.9 per cent or $69.21 million to $216.52 million from $147.31 million of the preceding session.
At the interbank segment of the market, the Nigerian currency closed against the American Dollar with a loss of 5 kobo at N410.26/$1 versus the previous day’s N410.21/$1.
As for the digital currency market, more of the cryptocurrencies tracked by Business Post on the trading platform, Quidax, were with the bulls than the bears.
At the close of transactions, Litecoin (LTC) moved up by 6.5 per cent to trade at N91,898.91, followed by Tron (TRX), which made a 6.3 per cent appreciation to sell at N45.81.
Bitcoin (BTC) grew by 3.8 per cent to trade at N25,525,614.92, Ripple (XRP) improved by 3.3 per cent to trade at N608.36, Ethereum (ETH) appreciated by 1.2 per cent to sell at N1,646,001.01, while Dash (DASH) gained 0.9 per cent to trade at N131,800.
However, the US Dollar Tether (USDT) depreciated by 0.7 per cent to sell for N522.56.
Dipo Olowookere