Naira Slumps to N765.13/$1 at I&E as Pound Sterling Nears N1000

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira continued its price discovery on Thursday in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) segment of the foreign exchange market, looking to close the disparity in its value in the other windows of the market.

In the official market, it depreciated against the US Dollar during the session, while it appreciated in the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) and the parallel market at the close of transactions.

Business Post reports that the domestic currency succumbed to forex demand pressure yesterday as it lost N1.76 or 0.26 per cent against the greenback to sell at N765.13/$1, in contrast to the preceding session’s N763.17/$1.

This was influenced by the 112.4 per cent or $108.40 million surge in the value of FX trades recorded in the spot market during the session to $204.84 million from the $96.44 million recorded in the preceding session.

But in the P2P, the Nigerian currency gained N1 against the Dollar to quote at N784/$1 compared with the previous day’s rate of N785/$1.

Similarly, in the black market, the Naira improved its value against its American counterpart on Thursday by N2 to trade at N763/$1 versus Wednesday’s exchange rate of N765/$1.

In the interbank market, the domestic currency lost N82.16 against the Pound Sterling to sell at N909.67/£1 versus the midweek session’s closing price of N827.51/£, and against the Euro, it lost N76.35 to quote at N782.29/€1 versus the preceding day’s N705.94/€1.

As for the digital currency market, the tokens tracked by Business Post moved in different directions yesterday as investors reacted to the testimony from the US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to the US House Financial Services Committee that the interest rate pause is temporary.

He added that more rate hikes are likely as inflation remains higher than its target, causing Bitcoin (BTC) to rise by 0.3 per cent to $30,046.86, and Ethereum (ETH) to weaken by 0.1 per cent to $1,878.85.

Yesterday, Cardano (ADA) improved by 2.2 per cent to $0.2922, Litecoin (LTC) appreciated by 1.2 per cent to $86.10, and Dogecoin (DOGE) grew by 0.9 per cent to sell at $0.0661.

However, Binance Coin (BNB) went down by 2.6 per cent to trade at $242.42, Solana (SOL) recorded a 2.3 per cent slump to finish at $16.73, and Ripple (XRP) lost 1.1 per cent to settle at $0.4959, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) closed flat at $1.00 apiece.