Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya, Dipo Olowookere
The scarcity of foreign exchange (FX) at the forex market in Nigeria has further weakened the value of the Naira to the Dollar at the black market, Business Post reports.
On Tuesday, the indigenous currency was exchanged with the US currency at N710/$1 compared with the N707/$1 it was traded on Monday, indicating a decline by N3 or 0.42 per cent.
The inability of customers to get the hard currency at the official market window, which is the commercial banks, has put pressure on the Nigerian currency in the parallel market.
However, the local currency heaved a sign of relief yesterday in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the market as it gained 46 Kobo or 0.11 per cent to sell for N436.04/$1 compared with the previous day’s value of N436.50/$1.
The respite came as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) improved forex liquidity in the spot market during the session as traders at the window were able to fairly meet the demands of users.
The value of forex transactions at the window went down by 16.1 per cent or $16.07 million during the trading session to $83.71 million from the $99.78 million achieved on Monday.
Also, in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) segment, the Nigerian currency appreciated against the greenback yesterday by N3 as it closed at N735/$1 in contrast to Monday’s N732/$1.
But in the interbank segment, the Naira declined against the Pound Sterling by N1.59 to N502.95/£1 from N501.36/£1 and fell by N1.38 against the Euro to N436.49/€1 from N435.49/€1.
Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market pointed south on Tuesday as inflation hit 8.3 per cent in the US last month as the price of goods rose 0.1 per cent on a month-on-month basis. This exceeded expectations of a cool-off to 8.1 per cent.
The markets reacted in a panicked fashion, with the crypto market tumbling hard immediately after the data dropped.
Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) were hit hard, with the former losing 10.2 per cent to sell at $20,082.22 and the latter declining by 7.8 per cent to sell at $1,584.27.
Solana (SOL) depreciated by 10.4 per cent to $33.78, Cardano (ADA) recorded an 8.3 per cent decrease to sell at $0.4675, Ripple (XRP) lost 6.7 per cent to trade at $0.3338, Dogecoin (DOGE) made a 6.1 per cent fall to trade at $0.0601, Binance Coin (BNB) recorded a 5.5 per cent depreciation to quote at $277.28, while Litecoin (LTC) slid 4.1 per cent to $58.80.
However, Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) closed flat at $1.00 each.
