Domestic Currency Falls to N504/$1 at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira weakened against the Dollar at the black market on Friday, July 23, losing N1 to sell at N504/$1 in contrast to N503/$1 it traded on Thursday.

Also, at the unregulated segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market yesterday, the domestic currency depreciated against the Pound Sterling and the Euro.

Against the British currency, the Naira lost N2 to close at N705/£1 compared to Thursday’s N703/£1 while against the Euro, it dropped N5 to close at N595/€1 compared to N590/€1 of the previous day.

However, at the Investors and Exchange (I&E) window, the Nigerian Naira appreciated against the greenback yesterday by 13 kobo or 0.03 per cent to trade at N411.50/$1 versus N411.63/$1 it traded at the preceding session.

Though the turnover for the day reduced, the demand for FX at the market segment remained high as investors transacted $135.28 million compared with the $137.83 million achieved on Thursday, signifying that the total transactions went down by 1.9 per cent or $2.55 million.

But the exchange rate of the Naira relative to the Dollar remained unchanged at the interbank segment of the market, closing at N410.14/$1, the same rate it was traded on Thursday.

As for the digital currency market, investors are beginning to have confidence in cryptocurrencies as the tokens tracked by Business Post on the trading platform, Quidax, closed mostly positive.

At the close of business yesterday, Ethereum (ETH) appreciated by 9.7 per cent to close at N1,008,998.99, Dash (DASH) gained 1.5 per cent to sell at N72,899.99, Ripple (XRP) improved by 0.7 per cent to N305.00, the US Dollar Tether (USDT) increased by 0.5 per cent to N514.99, while Bitcoin (BTC) appreciated by 0.1 per cent to close at N16,500,002.00.

However, Tron (TRX) lost 4.8 per cent to sell at N27.03, while Litecoin (LTC) declined by 3.7 per cent to trade at N59,204.99.