Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira closed the midweek session on a strong foot against the United States Dollar in the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM), gaining 6.8 per cent or N57.54 to sell at N790.68 versus the previous day’s rate of N848.12/$1.
The strengthening of the Nigerian Naira came despite a squeeze in the supply of forex into the official market, with the value of transactions waning by 47.9 per cent or $64.40 million to $69.88 million from the $134.28 million posted on Tuesday.
The market is faced with supply woes and a mounting backlog that is worrying investors. The reintegration of previously restricted importers has spurred no confidence as well, with all segments still feeling the pressure.
In the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) forex window, the value of the Nigerian currency weakened against the US Dollar yesterday by N51 as it closed at N1,121/$1 compared with the previous day’s N1,071/$1.
In the black market, the local currency lost N30 against the greenback in the midweek session to sell at N1,100/$1 compared with the preceding day’s exchange rate of N1,070/$1.
The situation was not different with the Naira in the spot market against the Pound Sterling as it fell by N128.69 to close at N1,073.17/£1 compared with the previous day’s N944.48/£1 and against the Euro, it depreciated by N110.83 to trade at N931.01/€1 versus the preceding day’s N820.18/€1.
The cryptocurrency market saw Bitcoin (BTC) buckle to $28,300 as the cryptocurrency market gave up gains that came from hopes that a BTC exchange-traded fund (ETF) could get approved in the coming months, sparking bullish hopes.
BTC slumped by 1.4 per cent to sell at $28,314.92, Ethereum (ETH) went down by 1.4 per cent to sell at $1,551.17, Litecoin (LTC) shed 3.2 per cent to $60.53, Solana (SOL) depreciated by 2.3 per cent to $23.67, and Cardano (ADA) shrank by 2.2 per cent to $0.2416.
Further, Ripple (XRP) dropped 1.7 per cent to $0.4832, Binance Coin (BNB) fell by 1.6 per cent to $209.72, Dogecoin (DOGE) decreased by 1.5 per cent to trade at $0.0583, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) remained unchanged at $1.00 apiece.
