By Adedapo Adesanya
It was a bad day for the Nigerian Naira in the official foreign exchange (FX) market, the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM), on Thursday, as it depreciated against the US Dollar.
This occurred ahead of plans by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Yemi Cardoso, to share the bank’s policy direction and economic outlook for the first time since his Senate confirmation more than two months ago later on Friday.
After two postponements of critical rates meetings, it is widely speculated that Mr Cardoso will share his direction at the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) annual dinner today to calm investors’ nerves.
But the bank’s lack of policy direction weakened the local currency against the greenback yesterday by 14 per cent or N115.80 to close at N956.33/$1 compared with the previous day’s N840.53/$1, according to data obtained from the FMDQ Securities Exchange.
The value of forex transactions recorded during the session reduced by 24.1 per cent or $47.71 million to $105.50 million from the $198.21 million posted a day earlier.
Also, in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window, the domestic currency depreciated against the American currency on Thursday by N3 to sell at N1,142/$1 compared with Wednesday’s value of N1,139/$1.
It was a similar scenario in the black market segment as the Naira suffered a loss of N2 against the US Dollar during the trading day to close at N1,162/$1 compared with the previous day’s exchange rate of N1,160/$1.
In the spot market, the Nigerian currency lost N38.28 against the Pound Sterling yesterday to trade at N1,047.86/£1 versus the midweek session’s N1,009.58/£1 and against the Euro, it shed N31.42 to quote at N912.61/€1 versus the preceding day’s N881.19/€1.
Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market turned bullish on Thursday as fears eased following the exit of Binance’s CEO. Mr Changpeng Zhao, after admittance of breaking anti-money laundering rules.
Bitcoin (BTC) gained 0.3 per cent to close at $37,413.87, Ethereum (ETH) jumped by 0.5 per cent to $2,071.06, Cardano (ADA) appreciated by 2.7 per cent to $0.3923, Ripple (XRP) grew by 1.9 per cent to $0.6204, Dogecoin (DOGE) went up by 1.5 per cent to $0.077, Litecoin (LTC) increased by 0.9 per cent to $69.62, and Binance Coin (BNB) rose by 0.2 per cent to $235.11, while Solana (SOL) went down by 1.4 per cent to $57.16, with Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) trading flat at $1.00 apiece.
Dipo Olowookere