By Adedapo Adesanya
The current situation of the Naira seems to be like the proverbial dog that is destined to be lost, which will never hear the hunter’s whistle.
This is because, despite efforts by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to salvage the situation, its value against the United States Dollar at the parallel market is worsening with each passing day.
At the unofficial window of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Tuesday, the local currency further depreciated by N7 against the greenback to sell at N557/$1 compared with the preceding day’s N550/$1.
The outcome of the domestic currency at the second trading session of the week left some forex end-users and observers in confusion, wondering if the exchange rate will not eventually hit N700/$1 before the end of the year.
In all of these, the CBN seems to be confused as to the right step to take to bring normalcy to the FX market, especially after banning the sale of forex to Bureaux De Change (BDC) operators nearly two months ago.
At the unregulated segment of the market yesterday, the Naira also depreciated against the Pound Sterling by N10 to N760/£1 from the previous rate of N750/£1, while against the Euro, it lost N9 to quote at N645/€1 in contrast to N636/€1 it quoted a day before, according to data sourced by Business Post from forex traders in Lagos.
Likewise, at the interbank segment of the market, which is controlled by the CBN, the Nigerian currency depreciated against the greenback by 4 kobo on Tuesday to N410.54/$1 from N410.51/$1.
However, at another CBN-regulated Investors and Exchange (I&E) window, the local currency appreciated during the session against the Dollar by 67 kobo or 0.16 per cent to settle at N412.08/$1 as against N412.75/$1 it was sold on Monday.
One of the reasons for this was the availability of FX to the market window, which was enough to soak the demand pressure from customers as data showed that the day’s turnover rose by 8.2 per cent or $13.28 million to $175.10 million from the preceding day’s $161.82 million.
Cryptocurrencies Continue Recovery
As for the digital currency market, normalcy returned on Tuesday, with Bitcoin (BTC) appreciating by 4.8 per cent to trade at N25,813,912.78, Ethereum (ETH) rising by 3.4 per cent to N1,863,927.00, and Ripple (XRP) gaining 0.1 per cent to trade at N600.50.
In addition, Litecoin (LTC) moved up by 2.6 per cent to trade at N114,755.72, Tron (TRX) rose by 2.9 per cent to sell at N65.28, Dash (DASH) improved by 4.3 per cent to N101,758.06, Binance Coin (BNB) appreciated by 1.9 per cent to N220,703.00, while Dogecoin (DOGE) rose by 0.1 per cent to trade at N131.08.
However, Cardano (ADA) lost 2.9 per cent to quote at N1,305.18, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) depreciated by 0.5 per cent to sell for N557.01.
Modupe Gbadeyanka