Naira Appreciates at I&E as FX Demand Eases by 66.4%

By Ahmed Rahma, Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira got a breather on Wednesday after consecutive days of losses against the US Dollar at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange market.

Business Post reports that it was the first time the local currency was appreciating against its American counterpart this week.

At the specialised market, the Naira had on Tuesday hit a low of N412/$1 but yesterday, it improved slightly 0.21 per cent or 87 kobo to close at N411.13/$1.

The gain was supported by a significant decline in the demand for the greenback at the market as transactions worth $36.92 million were executed compared with the $110.01 million recorded at the preceding session, indicating a 66.4 per cent or $73.09 million drop in the turnover.

But at the parallel market, the Nigerian currency was stable against the United States Dollar as it maintained its previous rate of N484/$1. The Naira also traded flat against the Pound Sterling yesterday at N675/£1, while against the Euro, it gained N2 to sell for N578/€1 compared to N580/€1 it was traded on Tuesday.

At the interbank segment of the FX market, the exchange rate of the Naira to the Dollar remained unchanged at N379/$1 at the close of transactions on Wednesday.

For cryptocurrencies, four out of seven tokens tracked by Business Post on Quidax appreciated, while the three others pointed south.

The Bitcoin (BTC) was among the gainers as its value rose by 3.7 per cent to trade at N34,799,878.00; Litecoin (LTC) appreciated by 3.9 per cent to trade at N125,800.01; the US Dollar Tether (USDT) increased by 2.3 per cent to sell for N637.77; while Dash (DASH) gained 0.4 per cent to sell at N147,249.04.

In the negative territory was Ripple (XRP) as its value went down by 4.2 per cent to N292.06, Ethereum (ETH) recorded a 0.4 per cent slide to sell at N1,126,210.99 while Tron (TRX) marginally lost 0.2 per cent to sell at N33.86.