By Adedapo Adesanya
Pressure further mounted on the Nigerian Naira at the different segments of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Tuesday as it depreciated against the US Dollar at the close of business.
The scarcity of forex was responsible for the poor performance of the Naira in the Investors and Exporters (I&E), black market and peer-to-peer (P2P) segments of the market during the session.
Business Post reports that the domestic currency lost N2.62 or 0.34 per cent on the greenback in the spot market yesterday to close at N776.60/$1 compared with the preceding session’s N773.98/$1, amid a 10.6 per cent or $6.79 million decline in the value of FX transactions to $71.01 million from $71.01 million.
Also, in the P2P window, the Nigerian currency depreciated against the Dollar on Tuesday by N7 to trade at N978/$1, in contrast to Monday’s exchange rate of N971/$1.
In the same vein, the Naira weakened against the American currency during the trading day by N6 to quote at N970/$1 compared with the previous day’s value of N964/$1.
However, the local currency appreciated against the Pound Sterling in the official market by N4.65 to finish at N956.76/£1 versus N961.41/£1 and gained N4.01 against the Euro to settle at N824.76/€1, in contrast to the previous day’s N828.58/€1.
Meanwhile, the digital currency market succumbed to profit-taking yesterday amid a focus on interest rate meetings this week and permission received by embattled FTX to begin selling. However, this process will be conducted at a measured pace and is unlikely to cause any sudden drops in the crypto markets.
Litecoin (LTC) lost 1.2 per cent to close at $66.43, Cardano (ADA) dropped 0.4 per cent to $0.2531, Binance Coin (BNB) went down by 0.3 per cent to trade at $215.88, Dogecoin (DOGE) depreciated by 0.09 per cent to sell at $0.0623, and Ethereum (ETH) slid by 0.3 per cent to $1,631.69.
However, Bitcoin (BTC) rose by 0.6 per cent to $26,960.92, Ripple (XRP) appreciated by 1.6 per cent to $0.5183, and Solana (SOL) recorded a 0.4 per cent jump to trade at $19.87, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) remained unchanged at $1.00 apiece.
