By Adedapo Adesanya
Things are beginning to get worse for the Nigerian Naira at the parallel as it further crashed at the segment of the foreign exchange (forex) market on Thursday.
Business Post reports that during the trading session, the local currency crashed by N2 against the US Dollar at the black market to trade at N468/$1 in contrast to N464/$1 it was exchanged at the same window on Wednesday.
The domestic currency recorded a similar outcome against the Euro at the parallel market yesterday as its value went down by N2 to close at N545/€1 compared to N543/£1 of the previous day, but against the British currency, the Pound Sterling, the Naira retained its previous rate of N600/£1.
However, at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the FX market, things were better as the Nigerian currency ended with 16 kobo or 0.04 per cent gain against to the United States Dollar to close at N385.67/$1 compared to N385.83/$1 it closed at the midweek session.
It was observed that the strengthening of the Naira was boosted by the decline in the demand for FX at the market segment yesterday as reflected by data obtained from FMDQ Securities Exchange.
Transactions worth $189.91 million were recorded at the investors’ window on Thursday in contrast to the $205.05 million achieved on Wednesday, indicating a decline by 7.9 per cent or $15.14 million.
At another segment of the market on Thursday, the Bureaux De Change (BDC) segment, data from the Association of the Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) showed that the exchange rate of the Naira to the Dollar remained static at N386/$1.
The Naira also maintained stability against the greenback yesterday at the interbank segment of the market, closing at N379/$1 when market activities were wrapped up.
Meanwhile, at the cryptocurrency market, six of seven tokens tracked by Business Post on Quidax recorded appreciation in their values.
The highest gaining token on Thursday was the Dash (DASH), which grew by 11.3 per cent to sell at N35,800.10, while Bitcoin went up by 4.0 per cent to N7,654,898.79, with Tron (TRX) gaining 0.7 per cent to sell for N11.8 and Litecoin (LTC) rising by 1.9 per cent to N28,219.23.
Equally, Ethereum (ETH) went up by 0.4 per cent to trade at N219,965.59, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) moved up 0.1 per cent to sell for N472.90.
The only decliner at the session on Thursday was Ripple (RPX) which went down by 1.4 per cent to sell at N120.2.