Naira Appreciates to N1,419/$1 as FX Pressure Eases Across Market Windows

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira appreciated on the US Dollar on Thursday, January 15 by 76 Kobo or 0.05 per cent in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEX) to N1,419.28/$1 from the N1,420.04/$1 it was traded in the previous session.

The Naira rallied against the Pound Sterling by N17.74 in the official market during the session to N1,893.35/£1 from N1,911.09/£1 and gained N5.56 on the Euro to close at N1,649.92/€1 versus Wednesday’s closing price of N1,655.48/€1.

At the GTBank forex desk, the Nigerian Naira appreciated against the greenback yesterday by N2 to sell at N1,425/$1 compared with the preceding day’s rate of N1,427/$1, and maintained stability against the Dollar in the parallel market at N1,490/$1.

Thursday’s appreciation was supported by relatively improved supply conditions, which helped to moderate demand pressures, across several FX segments.

Market analysts noted that further intervention from policies and supply from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will continue to keep the FX market afloat while others including stronger external inflows from foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and improving current account dynamics, will act as pillars.

Nigeria’s headline inflation rate declined to 15.15 per cent in December 2025 after a tweak to the data following the projection of a temporary “artificial spike” in the country’s December 2025 inflation rate.

The artificial spike is as a result of the base effect of December 2024, which is equated to 100, following the rebasing exercise which changed the base year from 2024 from 2009.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market was down after a US Senate committee postponed a key market structure bill, further cooling sentiment after a recent rally.

The US Senate Banking Committee postponed markup on the market structure bill after opposition from parts of the industry.

Litecoin (LTC) declined by 3.5 per cent to $72.03, Cardano (ADA) slumped by 2.4 per cent to $0.3931, Dogecoin (DOGE) weakened by 2.1 per cent to $0.1401, and Ripple (XRP) slipped by 1.1 per cent to $2.07.

Further, Solana (SOL) depreciated by 0.9 per cent to $143.04, Bitcoin (BTC) slipped by 0.6 per cent to $95,624.34,  Binance Coin (BNB) went down by 0.2 per cent to $933.51, and Ethereum (ETH) shrank by 0.1 per cent to $3,310.08, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) were flat at $1.00 each.