Naira Weakens to N762.63/$1 at I&E, N788.30/$1 at P2P

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira depreciated against the US Dollar in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) and the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) arms of the foreign exchange window on Thursday, July 6, but gained in the black market.

At the I&E segment of the market, the Nigerian currency lost N20.32 or 2.74 per cent against the greenback during the session to settle at N762.63/$1 versus the preceding session’s N742.31/$1, amid a 10.3 per cent or $9.23 million jump in the value of FX transactions.

Business Post gathered from the data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange that the forex trades of the session ended at $98.60 million, in contrast to the midweek’s $89.37 million.

Also, in the P2P window, the local currency was weakened against the American currency by N2.10 to sell at N788.30/$1 versus Wednesday’s exchange rate of N786.20/$1.

However, the Naira gained N1 against the Dollar yesterday in the parallel market to trade at N780/$1 compared with the preceding day’s value of N781/$1.

In the official market, the local currency witnessed beatings against the Pound Sterling and the Euro. It lost N14.21 against its British counterpart on Thursday to close at N962.24/£1, in contrast to its previous rate of N948.03/£1 and slumped by N8.17 against the Euro to finish at N822.88/€1 compared with Wednesday’s N814.71/€1.

Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency market was in red as better-than-expected US jobs data increased investor worries about the path of interest rates while the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s June meeting, released Wednesday, showed that most officials would support more rate increases ahead.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell by 1.4 per cent to $30,098.34, Ethereum (ETH) went down by 3.2 per cent to $1,850.99, Litecoin (LTC) declined by 5.9 per cent to $97.12, Dogecoin (DOGE) lost 2.4 per cent to sell at $0.0656, Binance Coin (BNB) slipped by 2.3 per cent to $233.80, Ripple (XRP) fell by 2.0 per cent to $0.4678, and Cardano (ADA) deflated by 0.9 per cent to trade at $0.2817.

But Solana (SOL) appreciated by 3.8 per cent to $20.33, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) traded flat at $1.00 each.