By Sodeinde Temidayo David
The turnover of the value of foreign exchange (FX) transactions at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the forex market in Nigeria last week stood at $724.1 million.
Business Post gathered that the weekly forex turnover at the market segment was 31.0 per cent or $261.5 million lower than the $1.1 billion achieved at the preceding week.
In the week, the average daily value of FX trades at the window was $144.8 million in contrast to the $212.9 million recorded at the preceding week, according to data.
The decline in the turnover for the week could be attributed to the inability to supply enough foreign currencies to the market, especially at the last trading session of the week as well as the opening day of the week.
Trades valued at $88.4 million were recorded last Friday, while on Monday, the value of transactions stood at $97.5 million.
It only rose to $128.1 million the next day and at the midweek, it jumped to $295.4 million before moderating to $114.7 million on Thursday.
Looking at the performance of Naira against the US dollar at the I&E window, the local currency depreciated by 0.12 per cent or 5 kobo week-on-week to close at N412/$1 compared with N411.5/$1 it ended at the preceding week.
Breaking down the daily performance of the domestic currency in the week, it traded at N411.13/$1 on Monday and appreciated to N410.67/$1 before on Tuesday before declining to N411.50/$1 the next day. On Thursday, it extended its fall to N411.67/$1 and crashed to N412/$1 a day after.
At the interbank segment, the Nigerian currency replicated the I&E performance as it lost 8 kobo or 0.02 per cent against the US Dollar to close at N410.48/$1 compared with the previous week’s N410.40/$1.
Also, at the unregulated segment of the FX market, the local currency experienced a depreciation of N15 or 2.83 per cent week-on-week against the US Dollar as it closed at N545/$1 last Friday in contrast to N530/$1 it traded at the previous Friday.
