By Adedapo Adesanya
Pressure is beginning to mount on the Naira again at the parallel market and on Monday, it further depreciated by N3 against the US Dollar.
Business Post reports that the local currency was traded at the unregulated segment of the market yesterday at N527/$1 compared with N524/$1 it was sold last Friday.
Also, at the same segment, the domestic currency lost N2 against the Pound Sterling as it traded at the rate of N715/£1 in contrast to N713/£1 of the preceding session.
The Naira took a heavier beating at the black market on the first trading session of this week as it weakened by N8 against the Euro to quote at N616/€1 compared with N608/€1 of the previous session.
At the interbank market, the exchange rate of the Nigerian currency to its American counterpart was in favour of the latter. This was because the Naira lost 3 kobo to sell for N410.29/$1 as against N410.26/$1 of the earlier trading day.
However, respite came for the indigenous currency at the Investors and Exchange (I&E) window as it appreciated by 37 kobo or 0.09 per cent against the greenback to close at N411.63/$1 in contrast to the preceding session’s N412.00/$1.
The Naira gained strength yesterday at the investors’ window because it was not under FX demand pressure as traders were able to meet the requests of their customers.
Transactions worth $81.81 million were made on Monday, 62.2 per cent or $134.71 million lower than the $216.52 million achieved last Friday.
Meanwhile, the crypto market was largely bearish yesterday, according to data tracked by Business Post.
Ripple (XRP) lost 3.9 per cent to trade at N595.83, Dash (DASH) fell by 3.6 per cent to N118,070.00, Bitcoin (BTC) slipped by 1.9 per cent to close at N25,070,090.00, Tron (TRX) dropped 0.2 per cent to sell at N46.58, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) went down by 0.1 per cent to N524.99.
But Litecoin (LTC) improved its value by 1.2 per cent to N92,782.89, while Ethereum (ETH) gained 0.9 per cent to close at N1,685,280.00.
Dipo Olowookere