Naira Falls to N415.05/$1 as Forex Demand Jumps 86.4%

By Adedapo Adesanya

On the back of a significant jump in demand, the Naira depreciated against the US Dollar at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange (forex) market on Thursday, December 16.

According to data gathered from FMDQ Securities Exchange, the Naira was sold at N415.05/$1 at the market segment yesterday in contrast to N414.25/$1 it was sold on Wednesday.

This indicated that the Nigerian currency depreciated against the greenback on Thursday by 80 kobo or 0.19 per cent and this was mainly because of the pressure that came on the domestic currency.

At the I&E segment yesterday, the total value of transactions was $331.11 million compared with the $177.60 million worth of FX trades carried out a day earlier. This means that the turnover during the session increased by 86.4 per cent or $153.51 million.

Also, at the interbank segment of the forex market, the Nigerian Naira recorded losses against the US Dollar, the Pound Sterling, and the Euro on Thursday.

Against the US Dollar, the domestic currency lost 8 kobo as it traded at N411.91/$1 in contrast to N411.83/$1 it traded at the last trading session and against the Pound Sterling, it depreciated by N4.63 to trade at N550.68/£1 compared to the previous day’s N546.05/£1 and against the Euro, it depreciated by N2.77 to quote at N467.11/€1 in contrast to N464.34/€1.

At the digital currency market, of the 10 tokens tracked by Business Post, six were gripped by the bears, while the bulls went away with four.

Tron (TRX) dropped 3.6 per cent to sell at N49.05, Cardano (ADA) lost 3.1 per cent to quote at N743.84, Dogecoin (DOGE) dipped 2.6 per cent as it sold for N103.54, Litecoin (LTC) went down by 2.4 per cent to N85,816.48, Bitcoin (BTC) declined by 1.2 per cent to sell at N27,718,355.57, while Ripple (XRP) slid by 0.7 per cent to N467.08.

On the flip side, Ethereum (ETH) made a 6.2 per cent appreciation to trade at N2,298,958.48, Dash (DASH) grew by 0.8 per cent to sell at N77,302.69, while US Dollar Tether (USDT) improved by 0.7 per cent to sell for N579.23.