By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira fought back against recent headwinds, appreciating against the US Dollar across the major segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Friday, July 30.
At the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the market, the local currency appreciated by 0.06 per cent or 23 kobo to close at N411.44/$1 compared with the previous rate of N411.67/$1.
During the trading day, the domestic currency was able to withstand the FX demand pressure as a result of the sufficient supply of foreign currency to the market.
The turnover for the session, according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange, was $121.08 million, 108.5 per cent or $63.01 million higher than the preceding day’s $58.07 million.
Also, at the parallel market, the Naira appreciated by N5 against the Dollar to close the week at N515/$1 compared with N520/$1 it did on Thursday.
This market space is gradually going back to normal after a disruption caused by the announcement of the ban of forex sales to Bureaux De Change (BDC) operators on Tuesday by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, had announced that the apex bank has stopped the sales of forex to BDC operators, explaining that the parallel market operations had become a conduit for illicit forex flows and graft.
At the same unregulated FX segment, the domestic currency gained N3 against the Pound Sterling to finish at N712/£1 in contrast to N715/£1 it quoted on Thursday, while against the Euro, it equally appreciated by N3 to sell at N597/€1 versus N600/€1 it traded a day earlier.
In the same vein, the Nigerian currency appreciated against the greenback at the interbank segment on Friday by 6 kobo to settle at N410.10/$1 compared to N410.16/$1 of the previous day.
A look at the cryptocurrency market yesterday showed that four of the seven tracked digital coins tracked by Business Post were bullish as the digital assets continue to nurse themselves to health.
Bitcoin (BTC) went up by 2.3 per cent to trade at N20,899,998/40, Ethereum (ETH) gained 9.7 per cent to sell at N1,319,000.00, Ripple (XRP) appreciated by 4.3 per cent to N380.01, while Litecoin (LTC) grew by 1.4 per cent to N70,000.
On the bearish side, the Dash (DASH) lost 2.9 per cent to trade at N77,603.12, the United States Dollar Tether (USDT) went down by 0.6 per cent to sell at N516.01, while Tron (TRX) depreciated by 0.5 per cent to trade at N31.72.
