By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian Naira weakened against the American Dollar across the foreign exchange (FX) market segments on Tuesday after the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, said the cash in circulation was about N1 trillion, assuring that the liquidity squeeze in the financial system would soon ease.
The value of the Naira closed lower yesterday against the greenback in the Peer-2-Peer (P2P), the Investors and Exporters (I&E), and the parallel market at the close of business.
In the I&E segment, the domestic currency lost 50 Kobo or 0.11 per cent against the US Dollar to settle at N462.00/$1 compared with the preceding session’s N461.50/$1.
This happened despite the spot market witnessing a sharp decline in the value of forex transactions by 50.13 per cent or $62.99 million to $62.67 million from the $125.66 million reported a day earlier.
In the P2P arm, the local currency fell against the American currency by N7 to quote at N755/$1 versus the N748/$1 it sold on Monday.
A look at the black market showed that the Naira tumbled against its United States counterpart by N3 yesterday to trade at N743/$1 compared with Monday’s exchange rate of N740/$1.
As for the interbank window, the Nigerian Naira shed N4.51 against the Pound Sterling during the session to sell at N563.66/£1 versus the previous day’s N559.15/£1, and against the Euro, it depreciated by N3.48 to settle at N493.59/€1, in contrast to N490.11/€1.
In the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin (BTC) briefly moved back above $28,000 as markets await the upcoming US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.
Many expect that the Federal Reserve will maintain rate hikes, however, at a slower pace of 25 basis points. This comes after the US announced it would explore measures to guarantee client deposits at embattled banks following a recent crisis.
BTC rose by 1.4 per cent to sell at $28,305.68, Ethereum (ETH) grew by 3.6 per cent to $1,809.68, Ripple (XRP) jumped by 21.3 per cent to $0.4668, Cardano (ADA) expanded by 12.0 per cent to $0.3804, Dogecoin (DOGE) made a 6.1 per cent appreciation to finish at $0.0766, Litecoin (LTC) went up by 3.7 per cent to $82.00, and Binance Coin (BNB) increased by 0.8 per cent to $337.92, while Solana (SOL) lost 0.2 per cent to sell at $22.56, with the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) closing flat at $1.00 each.
