Naira Weakens to N1,625/$1 at NAFEM, N1,690/$1 at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira weakened to N1,625/$1 in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Wednesday, October 9, amid continued volatility caused by forex pressure.

Business Post reports that in the preceding trading session, the exchange rate was N1,561.76/$1 in the official market, indicating that the local currency lost N63.37 or 4.1 per cent against the United States Dollar in 24 hours.

The value of FX transactions carried out in the spot market during the day depreciated by 32.7 per cent or $170.60 million to $83.08 million from the $253.68 million recorded a day earlier.

The decline in supply comes as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) made no fresh injections into the market.

However, the Naira strengthened its value against the Pound Sterling in the official market by N46.54 on Wednesday to sell at N2,085.08/£1 compared with the preceding session’s N2,131.62/£1.

It followed the same route against the Euro as it appreciated by N42.40 at midweek to quote at N1,746.58/€1 versus the previous day’s rate of N1,788.98/€1.

In the black market, the Nigerian Naira shrank against the greenback yesterday by N10 to trade at N1,690/$1 compared with the previous day’s value of N1,680/$1.

In the cryptocurrency market, most of the digital coins were down on reports circulating about seized cryptos linked to the PlusToken ponzi scheme being moved to exchanges during the day.

Chinese authorities seized nearly $4 billion worth of crypto from the PlusToken operators in November 2020; it was then reported on Wednesday that some of the remaining seized assets had been moved to exchanges in the past 24 hours. This raised concerns about potential selling pressure coming to the market.

Also, US federal prosecutors charged crypto trading firms Gotbit, ZM Quant, CLS Global and MyTrade and their employees with market manipulation and fraud.

Solana (SOL) lost 2.7 per cent to finish at $148.06, Bitcoin (BTC) depreciated by 2.5 per cent to $60,900.50, Cardano (ADA) slid by 2.2 per cent to $0.3397, and Ethereum (ETH) slumped by 1.9 per cent to trade at $2,400.01.

Further, Binance Coin (BNB) also dropped 1.9 per cent to close at $570.89, Litecoin (LTC) went south by 1.4 per cent to $64.89, Dogecoin (DOGE) weakened by 1.3 per cent to $0.108, and Ripple (XRP) recorded a 1.0 per cent depreciation to settle at $0.5271, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00 apiece.