Naira Appreciates at Black Market as Pressure Eases

By Adedapo Adesanya

The pressure on the Naira seems to be easing at the black market as the nation’s currency appreciated against the United States Dollar at the segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Thursday.

The Nigerian currency came under heavy pressure on Wednesday after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said it would no longer auction forex to operators in the Bureaux De Change (BDC) segment on allegations bordering on money laundering and other anti-market activities.

This forced some of the FX traders on the streets to hoard what was left with them, creating artificial scarcity and weakened the local currency by N20 to N525/$1.

But on Thursday, the Naira gained N5 as it closed at N520/$1.

Business Post observed that the exchange rate of the Naira to the Pound Sterling further depreciated yesterday by N5 to N715/£1 from the preceding day’s N710/£1, but against the Euro, it closed flat at N600/€1.

At the Investors and Exchange (I&E) window, the Naira depreciated marginally against the greenback by 7 kobo or 0.03 per cent to N411.67/$1 from N411.60/$1.

This occurred despite a significant decline in FX demand pressure on the domestic currency at the market segment as the turnover went down by 83.5 per cent or $294.00 million to $58.07 million from the $352.07 million recorded at the midweek session.

At the interbank segment, the Naira maintained stability against its American counterpart as it closed yesterday at N410.16/$1.

Meanwhile, the digital currency market continues to witness renewed interest from investors and this came from comments on the market by one of the big whales, Mr Elon Musk.

Bitcoin (BTC) appreciated by 0.4 per cent to close at N20,516,651.77, Ethereum (ETH) gained 5.2 per cent to close at N1,224,963.85, while Ripple (XRP) improved by 9.1 per cent to trade at N396.00.

In addition, Dash (DASH) appreciated by 8.8 per cent to sell at N84,997.00, Litecoin (LTC) moved up by 5.6 per cent to trade at N72,997.97, Tron (TRX) grew by 0.6 per cent to sell at N32.01, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) rose by 1.5 per cent to quote at N518.98.