Naira Falls at P2P, Gains at I&E, Stable at Parallel Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira further depreciated against the American Dollar at the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) arm of the foreign exchange market on Thursday but closed stronger at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window and maintained stability in the parallel market.

As the market continues its first trading week in the new year, there was a further N10 loss on the greenback yesterday at the P2P window to settle at N768/$1, in contrast to the N758/$1 it was traded in the preceding session.

However, in the specialised I&E window or the spot market, the Naira appreciated against the United States currency during the session by 16 Kobo or 0.04 per cent to close at N461.50/$1 compared with the midweek session’s rate of N461.67/$1, according to data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange.

This happened as there was a turnover of $68.15 million, 1.7 per cent or $1.18 million more than the $69.33 million published in the midweek session.

At the black market, the value of the local currency compared with its American counterpart remained unchanged at the close of transactions on Thursday at N740/$1.

A look at the interbank window showed that the domestic currency appreciated against the Pound Sterling by N1.27 yesterday to trade at N541.56/£1, in contrast to the preceding day’s rate of N542.83/£1 and against the Euro, it depreciated by 64 Kobo to settle at N478.08/€1 versus Wednesday’s value of N477.44/€1.

As for the digital currency market, there was a large bullish movement across the benchmarked tokens tracked by Business Post.

The day’s highest gainer was Solana (SOL), which recorded a 2.0 per cent jump to trade at $13.45, followed by a 1.2 per cent appreciation recorded by Cardano (ADA) as its value rose to $0.2692 and Dogecoin (DOGE) went up by 0.5 per cent to sell at $0.0727.

In addition, Bitcoin (BTC) gained 0.2 per cent to quote at $16,861.53, and Binance Coin (BNB) added 0.1 per cent to trade at $257.84.

Leading the loser’s assets was Ripple (XRP), which slid 1.6 per cent to trade at $0.3412. Litecoin (LTC) dropped 0.5 per cent to $74.84, and Ethereum (ETH) saw a 0.1 per cent depreciation to trade at $1,252.98.

Meanwhile, the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) remained unchanged at $1.00 apiece.