Naira Plunges to N848/$1 at Official Market, N1070/$1 at Parallel Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira hit a fresh low in over three months on Tuesday, October 17 in the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market (NFEM), losing 8.9 per cent or N69.32 against the Dollar to sell at N848.12/$1 compared with the preceding session’s N778.80/$1.

The value of forex transactions in the official market witnessed a 30.3 per cent or $91.19 million rise during the session to $134.28 million from the $43.09 million quoted on Monday.

The reintroduction of importers of 43 items into the official market after the lifting of an eight-year FX embargo has increased the demand for FX in the spot market, further weakening the value of the Nigerian currency across the market segments.

This showed in the peer-to-peer (P2P) arm of the FX market yesterday as the local currency depreciated against the American currency by N23 to trade at N1,071/$1 versus the N1,048/$1 it was quoted in the previous trading day.

Also, in the parallel market segment, the domestic currency lost N30 against the US Dollar to settle at N1,070/$1, in contrast to Monday’s closing price of N1,040/$1.

In the same vein, the value of the Naira shrank against the Pound Sterling in the official market yesterday by N13.34 to sell at N944.48/£1 compared with the previous day’s N931.14/£1 and against the Euro, it weakened by N15.04 to trade at N820.18/€1 versus the earlier day’s N805.14/€1.

In the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin (BTC) remained up at $28,700 as markets digested the latest retail sales figures from the United States. Sales, which account for more than 60 per cent of the US economy, rose by 0.7 per cent in September, 0.4 per cent higher than expected.

BTC rose by 1.9 per cent to sell at $28,746.44, Solana (SOL) grew by 0.9 per cent to trade at $24.22, Ripple (XRP) recorded a 0.2 per cent jump to $0.4922, and Binance Coin (BNB) added 0.1 per cent to finish at $213.21.

On the flip side, Cardano (ADA) lost 1.2 per cent to trade at $0.2473, Dogecoin (DOGE) fell by 1.2 per cent to $0.0592, Litecoin (LTC) went down by 1.0 per cent to $62.55, and Ethereum (ETH) crumbled by 0.8 per cent to $1,574.85, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) traded flat at $1.00 each.