Naira Appreciates at NAFEM, P2P, Flat at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira appreciated on the US Dollar at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Tuesday, December 19, and closed flat in the black market.

In the spot market, the local currency improved its value on the greenback yesterday by 4.9 per cent or N43.50 to settle at N844.85/$1, in contrast to the previous day’s value of N888.35/$1.

Also, in the official market, the Nigerian currency gained N12.14 against the British Pound Sterling during the session to close at N1,084.09/£1 compared with Monday’s closing price of N1,096.23/£1, and against the Euro, it chalked up N6.04 to quote at N935.43/€1 versus the N941.47/€1 it was sold a day earlier.

The domestic currency firmed up on Tuesday despite the shortfall in the supply of forex into the NAFEM window, which recorded FX trades valued at $111.76 million compared to the $137.82 million achieved a day earlier, showing a decline of 18.9 per cent or $26.06 million.

In the P2P segment, the Naira appreciated against the US Dollar yesterday by N26 to sell at N1,182/$1 compared with the preceding session’s exchange rate of N1,208/$1.

The value of the Nigerian Naira to the United States currency, however, remained unchanged at the close of business transactions on Tuesday at N1,230/$1.

Meanwhile, the digital currency market regained consciousness after news that BlackRock amended its spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) application to comply with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

This pushed up the price of , Bitcoin (BTC) by 4.3 per cent to $42,914.23, as Solana (SOL) increased by 8.4 per cent to $75.88, with Cardano (ADA) growing by 6.5 per cent to trade at $0.6136, and Binance Coin (BNB) climbing higher by 3.5 per cent to $245.30.

Further, Ethereum (ETH) went up by 3.2 per cent to sell at $2,243.43, Litecoin (LTC) expanded by 1.1 per cent to trade at $71.23, Dogecoin (DOGE) made a 1.0 per cent appreciation to trade at $0.093, and Ripple (XRP) recorded a 0.9 per cent rise to close at $0.6111, the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) closed flat at $1.00 apiece.