By Adedapo Adesanya
It was a bad day for the local currency at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday, November 1, 2024, as its value weakened against the United States currency by 2.4 per cent or N39.37 to N1,678.87/$1 from the preceding day’s N1,639.50/$1.
This poor performance of the Nigerian currency occurred amid an improvement in the supply of forex to the spot market during the session.
The turnover yesterday soared by 473.1 per cent or $1,158 billion to $1.403 billion from the $244.96 million recorded in the previous trading session, according to data obtained by Business Post from FMDQ Securities Exchange.
The surge in FX transactions at NAFEM on Friday suggests that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) may have injected forex into the market after it held for the past two months. This will help ease pressure from seasonal demand associated with the end of the year.
Also, this may have occurred after the CBN this week authorised commercial, merchant, and non-interest banks in the country to manage tradeable foreign currencies deposited in domiciliary accounts established through the new Foreign Currency Disclosure, Deposit, Repatriation, and Investment Scheme.
Also at the official market, the domestic currency traded flat against the Pound Sterling and the Euro at N2,160.43/£1 and N1,796.61/€1, respectively.
At the black market segment, the Naira depreciated against the US Dollar yesterday by N5 to sell for N1,735/$1, in contrast to the N1,730/$1 it was traded a day earlier.
In the cryptocurrency market, prices continue to rise in the aftermath of Mr Donald Trump’s election victory in the world’s largest economy, with Bitcoin (BTC) surpassing $77,000 for the first time before correcting, just as further rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve supported the rally. It gained 0.8 per cent on Friday to quote at $76,562.86.
Further, Binance Coin (BNB) rose by 5.5 per cent to $632.18, Ethereum (ETH) appreciated by 4.4 per cent to $3,047.24, Dogecoin (DOGE) went up by 2.9 per cent to $0.2036, Litecoin (LTC) increased by 2.7 per cent to $73.27, Solana (SOL) expanded by 1.2 per cent to $201.65, and Ripple (XRP) grew by 0.5 per cent to $0.5529, while Cardano (ADA) depreciated by 0.7 per cent to $0.4366, with the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) closing at $1.00 each.
Dipo Olowookere