Naira Further Depreciates at Unregulated FX Window

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira depreciated against a basket of foreign currencies, the US Dollar, Pound Sterling and Euro, at the unregulated segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Tuesday, May 25.

At the window, which caters for demands not met by government-regulated channels, the local currency further lost its value against the US currency by N1 as it sold for N487/$1 as against N486/$1 it quoted on Monday.

Following the same pattern, the Nigerian currency declined against the Pound Sterling by N1 at the black market to trade at N687/£1 compared to N686/£1 it was sold at the previous session.

In the same vein, the local went down against the Euro by N3 yesterday to sell at N590/€1 in contrast to N587/€1 it traded previously.

Also, at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the FX market on Tuesday, the Naira depreciated against the American currency by 31 kobo or 0.08 per cent to wrap up the day at N411.56/$1 as against N411.25/$1 of the day before.

The value of the domestic currency depreciated as the segment despite a decline in the turnover yesterday by $81.36 million or 38.4 per cent.

Data obtained by Business Post showed that trades valued at $130.50 million were recorded on Tuesday in contrast to the $211.86 million achieved on Monday.

The supply shortage may have been responsible for the poor performance of the local currency at the market window at the trading session.

Meanwhile, at the cryptocurrency market, it was largely bearish as only two of the seven digital coins tracked by this newspaper closed bullish yesterday.

The Dash (DASH) depreciated by 10.9 per cent to sell at N92,607.01, Ripple (XRP) lost 8.7 per cent to trade at N492.99, Litecoin (LTC) went down by 8.4 per cent to trade at N87,006.00, Tron (TRX) declined by 2.8 per cent to sell at N37.41, while Ethereum (ETH) dropped 0.8 per cent to sell at N1,277,277.00.

On the gainers’ wing, the Bitcoin (BTC) appreciated by 2.5 per cent to trade at N19,483,482.57, the US Dollar Tether (USDT) gained 0.2 per cent to quote at N507.00.