By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira depreciated against the US Dollar in the foreign exchange (FX) market on Tuesday, February 6 despite recent moves by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to staunch infractions and improve forex supply.
Yesterday, the value of FX sales by forex traders in the spot market increased by 5.7 per cent or $25.16 million to $465.29 million from the $440.13 million reported in the preceding trading day. It was the highest recorded in a single day in over a year.
Despite the high turnover, the value of the Nigerian currency to the greenback weakened during the session in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) by 0.99 per cent or N14.03 to N1,433.89/$1 from Monday’s exchange rate of N1,419.86/$1.
Also, the domestic currency slumped against the Pound Sterling in the official market by N36.58 to end at N1,769.56/£1 compared with the N1,732.88/£1 it was sold a day earlier, and against the Euro, it fell by N35.85 to close at N1,477.98/€1 versus the previous day’s N1,513.83/€1.
In the peer-to-peer (P2P) window, the local currency further declined against its American counterpart by N42 to trade at N1,479/$1, in contrast to Monday’s value of N1,437/$1.
In the same vein, the Naira lost N20 against the United States Dollar in the black market on Tuesday to quote at N1,460/$1 compared with the preceding day’s price of N1,440/$1.
Following a flurry of policies released in the last week, the CBN continued its effort to assure the market of its determination this week as the Governor of the apex bank, Mr Olayemi Cardoso, appeared before the House of Representatives to speak on the state of the economy.
He stated that recent reforms of the apex bank were beginning to yield positive results concerning liquidity in the foreign exchange market, adding that there has been an increase in dollar liquidity within the country’s currency market.
“As of yesterday, the volume of transactions in our market was over $800 million. This is the first time in many years it has achieved this level.”
As for the digital currency market, Ethereum (ETH) saw its value jump by 2.3 per cent to $2,360.29, Bitcoin (BTC) rose by 0.6 per cent to $42,884.34, Solana (SOL) appreciated by 0.4 per cent to $95.66, Litecoin (LTC) increased by 0.3 per cent to $67.86, Binance Coin (BNB) gained 0.3 per cent to sell at $302.23, Dogecoin (DOGE) went up by 0.2 per cent to $0.0783, and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) advanced by 0.05 per cent to $0.9994.
However, Cardano (ADA) depreciated by 0.5 per cent to trade at $0.4883, and Ripple (XRP) moderated by 0.3 per cent to settle at $0.5007, while Binance USD (BUSD) remained unchanged at $1.00.
