By Adedapo Adesanya
The recent spate of tension across states in the country has mostly kept investors away from the foreign exchange market as the demand for the US Dollar dropped on Wednesday, October 21 at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment.
During the session, the value of transactions recorded at the market, which specially caters for exporters and investors, reduced significantly by 81.5 per cent or $26.62 million to $6.05 million from $32.67 million recorded previously, according to data sourced from the FMDQ Securities Exchange.
Despite the huge decline in the daily turnover, the value of the local currency against the United States Dollar remained at N385.75/$1.
The #EndSars protests against the brutality of a police unit, accused of illegal detentions, assaults and shootings, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), had sparked nationwide and international interests.
On Tuesday night, some soldiers were allegedly sent to disrupt peaceful gatherings at Lekki, shooting at the youths, leading to the death of some of them. This tripped off the fuse and led to the destruction of properties on Wednesday.
At the parallel market yesterday, the domestic currency traded flat against the greenback for another session at N463/$1 at the close of business. Equally, the Naira retained its previous rate against the Pound at N592/£1. It further traded flat against the Euro at N540/€1.
At the interbank window of the forex market, the value of the domestic currency remained unchanged against the American currency at N379/$1.
At the Bureaux De Change (BDC) segment of the foreign market, data from the Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) showed that the Naira closed flat against the American currency at N386/$1.
Meanwhile, at the cryptocurrency market, the rates of the digital money appreciated across the currencies tracked by Business Post on Quidax.
The most popular of the bunch, Bitcoin (BTC), rose by 6.6 per cent to sell at N5.87 million while Ethereum (ETH) recorded a 5.8 per cent rise to N181,769.
Other sourced currencies such as Litecoin (LTC) jumped by 11.4 per cent to N24,219, while the value of Ripple (XRP) pointed north by 2.5 per cent to sell at N115.31 as at press time.
