Naira Drops as Volatility Persists in Official Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira depreciated against the US Dollar by about 6 per cent or N94.19 to close at N1,665.50/$1 versus the N1,571.31/$1 it ended in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday, February 23.

This was mainly affected by the shortfall in the supply of foreign exchange (FX) to the official market during the session, as data from FMDQ Securities Exchange showed.

The value of forex transactions in the spot market yesterday declined by 20.9 per cent or $40.32 million to $151.92 million from the $192.25 million transacted a day earlier.

But the Naira witnessed no movements against the Pound Sterling and the Euro t NAFEM on the last trading session of the week, remaining unchanged at N1,880.81/£1 and N1,609.89/€1, respectively.

In the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window, things got better for the Nigerian currency as its value improved against the greenback on Friday by N32 to trade at N1,705/$1, in contrast to the previous day’s N1,737/$1.

Also, the domestic currency appreciated against the Dollar in the black market during the session to close at N1,800/$1 versus the N1,895/$1 it was transacted in the preceding trading session.

It has been an turbulent week for the FX market as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) moved to apply aggressive and unorthodox measures to protect the Naira. While the solution was temporary, market analysts expect the CBN to intensify its efforts in coming weeks.

In the cryptocurrency market, Binance Coin (BNB) saw profit-taking as it went from the top gainer in the last session to the highest day loser with a 1.9 per cent loss to trade at $375.93.

Solana (SOL) fell by 1.7 per cent to sell at $100.12, Ethereum (ETH) depreciated by 1.6 per cent to $2,923.27, Ripple (XRP) dropped 1.2 per cent to quote at $0.5349, Bitcoin (BTC) weakened by 1.0 per cent to $50,750, and Cardano (ADA) slowed by 0.4 per cent to $0.5839.

However, Dogecoin (DOGE) jumped by 0.6 per cent to $0.0847, the US Dollar Tether (USDT) rose by 0.05 per cent to $0.9999, and Litecoin (LTC) gained 0.04 per cent to settle at $68.87, and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00.