Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
A slight shortage in the supply of FX at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the foreign exchange (forex) market on Tuesday, December 14 weakened the Naira against the United States Dollar by 74 kobo or 0.18 per cent.
Business Post reports that the market witnessed an upsurge in the request for forex yesterday at the market segment and the available FX could not go round, causing the local currency to close at N414.80/$1 in contrast to N414.06/$1 it was traded at the previous session.
According to data harvested from the FMDQ Securities Exchange, the value of transactions at the close of business stood at $377.88 million in contrast to the previous day’s turnover of $121.45 million.
This indicated that the turnover for Tuesday increased significantly by 211.1 per cent or $256.43 million and due to this demand pressure, the domestic currency depreciated in value as traders were trying to ration what they had.
However, at the interbank window, the Nigerian currency swayed towards the stronger side against the American currency as it gained 3 kobo to trade at N411.73/$1 compared with the N411.76/$1 it quoted a day earlier.
But the Naira was not too lucky against the Pound Sterling yesterday as it depreciated by N2.39 to trade at N545.95/£1 versus the preceding session’s N543.56/£1 and dropped 42 kobo against the Euro to close the day at N464.51/€1 compared with N464.09/€1 of the previous day.
At the cryptocurrency market, there was a recovery ahead of the US Federal Reserve decision on Wednesday, which could be a source of market volatility.
Dogecoin (DOGE) surged on Tuesday by 22.6 per cent to N104.86, Cardano (ADA) appreciated by 11.1 per cent to trade at N734.03, Ethereum (ETH) followed with a 10.9 per cent gain to sell at N2,140,000.01, while Binance Coin (BNB) pointed northwards by 8.8 per cent to sell at N216,607.46,
Further, Litecoin (LTC) went up by 6.9 per cent to sell at N88,281.29, Ripple (XRP) appreciated by 6.7 per cent to N476.07, while Bitcoin (BTC) continued its slow ascent by 2.7 per cent to trade at N27,612,611.92.
On the losers’ side, Tron (TRX) emerged as the highest decliner, falling by 1.9 per cent to sell for N50.78, Dash (DASH) depreciated by 1.2 per cent to trade at N74,749.61, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) lost 0.9 per cent to quote at N574.70.
