By Adedapo Adesanya
The situation of the Naira worsened at the parallel side of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Wednesday as mounting pressure took away N3 from the value of the local currency.
Business Post reports that at the midweek trading session, the domestic currency traded against the United States Dollar at N535/$1 at the unregulated forex window compared with the N532/$1 it was sold at the previous session.
Also, at the same segment, the Nigerian currency lost N3 against the British Pound Sterling yesterday to sell at N730/£1 in contrast to N730/£1 it was exchanged on Tuesday, while against the Euro, it depreciated by N3 to settle at N629/€1 in contrast to N626/€1 of the preceding day.
It was a similar situation for the Naira at the Investors and Exchange (I&E) window of the FX market as it depreciated against the American currency by 83 kobo or 0.2 per cent to close at N411.50/$1 compared to N410.67/$1 of the preceding session.
A significant increase in the demand for foreign currencies at the I&E segment, coupled with a strain in supply, caused the weakening of the local currency against the greenback yesterday.
Data showed that the turnover at the investors’ segment on Wednesday stood at $295.39 million compared with the previous day’s $128.11 million, indicating a 56.6 per cent or $167.28 million rise.
However, the exchange rate at the interbank segment of the market remained flat against the US Dollar on Wednesday, trading at N410.42/$1.
Meanwhile, at the cryptocurrency market yesterday, the bears took control as eight of the 10 tokens tracked by Business Post closed in red.
Dash (DASH) took the highest loss as it dropped 7.1 per cent to trade at N107,501.00, Ethereum (ETH) made a 5.6 per cent depreciation to close at N1,834,200.00, while Ripple (XRP) went down by 2.7 per cent to sell at N600.64.
Also, Binance Coin (BNB) fell by 1.9 per cent to trade at N152,000, Dogecoin (DOGE) dropped 1.5 per cent to quote at N137.82, Cardano (ADA) depreciated by 1.4 per cent to trade at N1,325.95, while Bitcoin (BTC) declined by 0.9 per cent to close at N24,699,975.75.
On the gainers’ angle, Tron (TRX) aggressively made an 18.5 per cent appreciation to sell at N51.04, Litecoin (LTC) grew by 3.5 per cent to sell at N98,753.33, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) improved by 1.5 per cent to close at N539.99.