Naira Further Weakens Amid Piling FX Backlog

By Adedapo Adesanya

It was not a good day for the Naira in the different segments of the foreign exchange (forex) market on Thursday as its value went down against the United States Dollar.

Business Post reports that the Nigerian currency weakened in the Investors and Exporters (I&E), the Peer-to-Peer (P2P), and the black market windows.

In the official market, it shrank against the greenback yesterday by 2.5 per cent or N18.99 to sell at N775.20/$1 compared with the preceding day’s N756.21/$1, according to data obtained from the FMDQ Securities Exchange.

This happened as the value of FX transactions increased by $1.46 million or 1.5 per cent to $94.24 million from the $95.70 million achieved on Wednesday.

In the P2P forex window, the value of the Nigerian currency depreciated against the Dollar by N8 to close at N1,011/$1 compared with the preceding session’s N1,005/$1.

In the same vein, the local currency lost N4 against the US Dollar on Thursday to trade at N1,005/$1, in contrast to the previous day’s rate of N1,001/$1.

Also, the Naira performed badly against the Pound Sterling in the spot market yesterday, losing N11.28 to sell at N938.33/£1 versus N927.40/£1 and depreciated against the Euro by N11.28 to close at N813.09/€1 versus N801.81/€1.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market was down yesterday ahead of the forthcoming US nonfarm payrolls (NFP) report. Payrolls are expected to come in at 170,000 for September, down from 187,000 the month prior.

During the trading session, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) went down by 0.6 per cent to $27,490.27, Ethereum (ETH) shrank by 1.2 per cent to $1,620.38, Solana (SOL) depreciated by 1.0 per cent to $23.01, Ripple (XRP) also fell by 1.0 per cent to $0.522, Binance Coin (BNB) recorded a 0.8 per cent slip to trade at $211.28, and Dogecoin (DOGE) dipped by 0.2 per cent to $0.0609.

However, Cardano (ADA) grew by 1.6 per cent to $0.2629 and Litecoin (LTC) climbed higher by 0.9 per cent to $65.23, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) retained parity at $1.00 each.