Naira Further Declines to N1,446/$1 at Official Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

It was another bearish moment for the domestic currency in the official segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Friday as its value further weakened against the United States Dollar at the close of transactions.

Data showed that the Naira lost N2.83 or 0.2 per cent on the greenback in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) to settle at N1,446.74/$1, in contrast to the previous day’s value of N1,443.91/$1.

Equally, the local currency depreciated against the Pound Sterling by 29 Kobo in the spot market during the session to sell for N1,913.32/£1 versus Thursday’s price of N1,913.03/£1 and tumbled against the Euro by 54 Kobo to close at N1,674.46/€1 compared with the previous session’s closing price of N1,673.92/€1.

But at the parallel market, it remained flat against the US Dollar yesterday at N1,460/$1 and appreciated by N7 at GTBank to trade at N1,440/$1 compared with the preceding day’s closing value of N1,447/$1.

Pressure has returned to the market as December arrives with many FX needs to stock heavily for Christmas and New Year sales led to increase in corporate demand for FX, as inflows into the official market has been on the decline.

Also, efforts by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to handle this demand has not materialised even with a strong $46.7 billion external reserves position, which was boosted by rising non-oil exports, improved oil production, higher remittances, and increasing portfolio investment.

In the cryptocurrency market, traders took profit as they continued to focus on the December 12 meeting of the US Federal Reserve committee meeting, where it is expected that there will be rate cuts.

Cardano (ADA) depreciated by 2.1 per cent to $0.4164, Solana (SOL) went south by 1.8 per cent to $137.27, Ripple (XRP) slid by 1.2 per cent to $2.18, and  Binance Coin (BNB) slipped by 0.4 per cent to $879.93.

Further, Bitcoin (BTC) fell by 0.9 per cent to $90,598.11, Dogecoin (DOGE) shrank by 0.6 per cent to $0.1493, Litecoin (LTC) slumped by 0.4 per cent to 84.53, and Ethereum (ETH) declined by 0.2 per cent to $3,013.84, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) closed flat at $1.00 each.