Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
It was a bad day for the Nigerian currency at the Investors and Exporters segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Tuesday.
This was because the local currency depreciated against the United States Dollar at the market window by N1 or 0.24 per cent to trade at N411/$1 in contrast to N410/$1 it ended at the previous session.
It was the first trading session of the week because the market closed for business on Monday to mark the Workers’ Day holiday declared by the federal government.
It was feared that the Naira will come under demand pressure, but this did not happen as the turnover for the day reduced by $14.22 million or 25.0 per cent to $42.59 million from the $56.81 million recorded last Friday.
It was observed that most FX traders could not meet the demands of their customers as a result of supply shortage and this contributed to the decline suffered by the domestic currency.
However, the Naira maintained stablity against the US Dollar at the other segments of the market on Tuesday as the value of the local currency remained unchanged at N379/$1 at the interbank window.
Also, the local currency traded flat against the greenback at the parallel market yesterday at N485/$1. It further closed flat against the British Pound Sterling at the black market at N675/£1 but depreciated by N1 against the Euro at the unregulated FX segment to close at N586/€1 versus the previous session’s N585/€1.
A look at the cryptocurrency market on Tuesday showed that prices moved in different directions, according to data harvested by Business Post from Quidax.
The Bitcoin (BTC) depreciated by 3.0 per cent to trade at N27,049,174.30, Ripple (XRP) lost 5.1 per cent to sell at N735.02, while Tron (TRX) moved downwards by 5.4 per cent to N63.46.
However, Ethereum (ETH) appreciated by 2.2 per cent to N1,659,981.38, Litecoin (LTC) gained 13.2 per cent to quote at N158,450, Dash (DASH) improved by 1.2 per cent to N171,001.59, while the United States Dollar Tether (USDT) gained 0.6 per cent to sell for N528.90.
