Naira Appreciates at Official, Unregulated Markets

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira appreciated against the US Dollar in the Nigeria Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) and the unregulated Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and the parallel market segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Wednesday, November 29 as President Bola Tinubu reiterated his administration’s promise to meet its obligations.

Speaking during the presentation of his administration’s N27.50 trillion 2024 budget proposal to the joint session of the 10th National Assembly on Wednesday, Mr Tinubu said, “Despite the challenges, we continue to meet our obligations.”

In the official NAFEM segment of the market, the value of the local currency went up against the greenback during the session by 5.7 per cent or N23.20 to sell at N831.47/$1 compared with the preceding session rate of N854.67/$1.

This happened as the value of forex transactions spiked by 18.9 per cent or $22.29 million to $140.35 million from the $118.06 million published on Tuesday.

Equally, in the P2P section, the domestic currency gained N3 on the American currency to close at N1,147/$1, in contrast to the previous trading day’s value of N1,150/$1.

Also, the Nigerian currency improved its value against its American counterpart in the black market yesterday by N3 to finish at N1,155/$1 compared with the preceding session’s value of N1,158/$1.

It was observed that the local currency weakened against the Pound Sterling in the spot market on Wednesday by N9.91 to sell for N1,046.09/£1 versus Tuesday’s price of N1,036.18/£1 and lost N43.11 against the Euro to finish at N940.69/€1 compared with the previous day’s N897.58/€1.

In the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin (BTC) climbed above $38,000 yesterday amid optimism the US central bank may be closer to lowering borrowing costs if inflation continues to decline, gaining 2.7 per cent to quote at $38,261.89.

Further, Ethereum (ETH) grew by 1.7 per cent to $2,060.33, Solana (SOL) jumped by 8.5 per cent to $60.87, Dogecoin (DOGE) expanded by 5.8 per cent to $0.0825, Cardano (ADA) rose by 2.3 per cent to $0.3861, Litecoin (LTC) went up by 1.2 per cent to trade at $69.90, Ripple (XRP) increased by 1.0 per cent to $0.6122, and Binance Coin (BNB) chalked up 0.4 per cent to sell for $229.69, while the US Dollar Tether (USDt) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) closed flat at $1.00 apiece.