By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira appreciated against the US Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Tuesday, May 21, extending gains from the previous session following a 0.23 per cent or N3.31 improvement to close at N1,465.68/$1 compared with the previous day’s N1,468.99/$1.
Also, the local currency improved its value against the Pound Sterling in the official market yesterday by N21.38 to sell at N1,882.47/£1 compared with the preceding session’s N1,903.85/£1 and against the Euro, it scaled up N20.29 to quote at N1,610.16/€1 versus Monday’s rate of N1,630.45/€1, as the supply of foreign exchange (FX) increased by $106.76 million or 66.1 per cent to $268.17 million from $161.41 million.
In the same vein, the domestic currency appreciated against the Dollar in the parallel market during the trading session by N20 to trade at N1,480/$1, in contrast to the previous day’s rate of N1,500/$1.
The sterling performance of the Nigerian currency occurred as the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Yemi Cardoso, said on Tuesday that investors were beginning to return to the country due to a series of measures the apex bank has taken to sanitise the FX market.
Mr Cardoso asserted this while briefing the press on the outcome of the two-day Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting where the committee raised the benchmark interest rate by 150 basis points to 26.25 per cent to tackle inflation and bolster the ailing Naira.
Some of those, according to him, were measures to bring the much-needed transparency into the market and the settlement of “all valid” foreign exchange backlogs to industries and foreigners, which the apex bank said amounted to $7 billion.
In the cryptocurrency market, Ethereum (ETH) continued to rally on increasing anticipation of a US spot exchange-traded (ETF) fund approval, gaining 4.8 per cent to trade at $3,794.98.
Binance Coin (BNB) rose by 4.4 per cent to close at $617.67, Dogecoin (DOGE) climbed by 3.9 per cent to $0.1696, Bitcoin (BTC) appreciated by 0.6 per cent to $70,116.73, and Ripple (XRP) expanded by 0.08 per cent to settle at $0.5364.
On the flip side, Solana (SOL) depreciated by 4.4 per cent to $178.34, Cardano (ADA) lost 0.8 per cent to trade at $0.4945, and Litecoin (LTC) went down by 0.09 per cent to $88.11, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00 apiece.
