Naira Now N1,043/$1 at Official Market as FX Supply Shrinks 39.5%

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira recorded a 19.5 per cent or N170.50 loss against the US Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Thursday, selling at N1,043.09/$1 compared with the previous day’s rate of N872.59/$1.

The Nigerian currency witnessed this significant loss after the supply of forex to the official market shrank by 39.5 per cent or $44.30 million to $83.63 million from the $127.93 million achieved in the midweek session.

Also, the local currency depreciated against its American currency in the parallel market yesterday by N25 to quote at N1,200/$1 compared with the Wednesday’s closing price of N1,175/$1.

However, in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window of the FX market, the value of the Nigerian currency closed flat against the greenback during the session at N1,187/$1.

Yesterday, in the official market, the Naira depreciated against the British Pound Sterling by N181.81 to wrap up at N1,142.99/£1, in contrast to the previous day’s rate of N1,324.80/£1 and against the Euro, the Nigerian currency improved its value by N151.88 to close at N993.35/€1 versus Wednesday’s value of N1,147.23/€1.

In the cryptocurrency market, Binance’s native token, Binance Coin (BNB), gained nearly 10% on Thursday after the crypto trading platform announced its 42nd project on Launchpool that would allow Binance traders have the opportunity to farm AI tokens by staking BNB, FDUSD, and TUSD for seven days starting from December 28, 2023.

As a result, BNB recorded a 9.2 per cent appreciation to trade at $322.51, while Cardano (ADA) grew by 8.2 per cent to sell at $0.6428, and Ethereum (ETH) gained 6.5 per cent to trade at $2,372.24.

Further, Litecoin (LTC) rose by 3.6 per cent to $76.23, Ripple (XRP) appreciated by 2.8 per cent to $0.6371, Dogecoin (DOGE) jumped by 2.5 per cent to $0.0926, and Bitcoin (BTC) rallied by 1.3 per cent to $43,020.56, while Solana (SOL) depreciated by 6.1 per cent to $105.13, with the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) retaining parity at $1.00 apiece.