Naira Halts Rally at I&E Window, Loses by 0.17%

By Adedapo Adesanya

There was a halt to the Naira’s rally against the US Dollar at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange market on Wednesday.

During the session, the local currency depreciated by 0.17 per cent or 70 kobo to quote at N394.50/$1 compared to its previous rate of N393.83/$1.

In the first two sessions of the week, the domestic currency had appreciated at the market, making this the first time the local currency was depreciating this year at the market window.

The depreciation of the local currency came on the back of a rise in demand for FX at the I&E segment. During the session, transactions worth $52.50 million were recorded, 56.7 per cent or $18.99 million higher than the $33.51 million recorded at the preceding session.

Meanwhile, the Naira extended its flat outcome against the greenback at the parallel market to sell at N470/$1 on Wednesday. This was also the same pattern for the local currency against the Pound as it finished the midweek session selling at the rate of N628/£1.

It, however, the local currency depreciated by N1 in value against the Euro as it dropped to N573/€1 from the preceding day’s N572/€1.

Also, the Nigerian currency traded flat against the greenback on Wednesday at the Bureaux De Change (BDC) market segment at N395/$1 just as the value of the Naira against the American currency remained unchanged at the interbank segment at N379/$1.

At the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin (BTC)’s rally continued as its value appreciated on Wednesday by 8.7 per cent to trade at N17,405,001.02.

Despite recent headwinds, Ripple (XRP) made a 15.8 per cent gain to trade at N123.92 while Ethereum (ETH), in the same pattern, grew by 12.3 per cent to sell at N572,862.77.

Marking a 4.7 per cent growth, Litecoin (LTC) traded at N79,800.00, Dash (DASH) made a 2.9 per cent gain to sell at N45,313 while Tron (TRX) gained 8.7 per cent to sell at N14.69

On the loser’s list, the day’s only loss was recorded by the US Dollar Tether (USDT), which marked a 0.6 per cent depreciation to sell for N480.00.