By Adedapo Adesanya
The Naira closed mixed on Tuesday as it strengthened against the American Dollar at the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and the black market arms of the foreign exchange (forex) market but weakened at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window.
As the market continues on a rebalancing path, the country’s legal tender further appreciated by N1 to settle at N784/$1 in the P2P window, in contrast to the N785/$1 it closed in the preceding session.
Also, in the parallel market, the Nigerian currency gained N7 against the US Dollar during the session to quote at N768/$1 compared with the previous day’s rate of N775/$1.
In the I&E segment, the Naira, however, depreciated against the greenback by 60 Kobo or 0.13 per cent to sell at N445.30/$1, in contrast to Monday’s value of N444.70/$1, according to data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange.
The value of the local currency came under pressure as the demand for FX in the official market increased by 44.6 per cent or $33.42 million to $108.32 million from $74.90 million.
Also, the domestic currency depreciated against the Euro at the interbank segment of the forex market on Tuesday by N3.14 to trade at N465.11/€1 compared with the previous day’s N461.97/€1, and against the Pound Sterling, it gained 9 Kobo to close N537.13/£1 compared with Monday’s N537.24/£1.
Meanwhile, the digital currency market turned bullish yesterday as Ethereum (ETH) improved by 5.8 per cent to trade at $1,266.84, and Dogecoin (DOGE) went up by 2.9 per cent to sell at $0.1063.
Further, Ripple (XRP) rose by 2.8 per cent to trade at $0.4021, Bitcoin (BTC) gained 2.5 per cent to finish at $16,850.25, Litecoin (LTC) appreciated by 1.7 per cent to $78.46, Cardano (ADA) grew by 0.9 per cent to $0.3141, the US Dollar Tether (USDT) increased its value by 0.01 per cent to settle at $0.9997.
On the flip side, Solana (SOL) recorded a 1.5 per cent slump to trade at $13.56, Binance Coin (BNB) slid by 0.7 per cent to $297.58, and Binance USD (BUSD) fell by 0.05 per cent to $0.9998.