Nigerian Currency Weakens at Official Market by 0.12%

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Nigerian currency, Naira, was weakened against the United States Dollar in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange (forex) market by 55 Kobo or 0.12 per cent on Monday, May 8.

Data obtained by this newspaper showed that it was exchanged at the official market at N462.78/$1 compared with the N462.23/$1 it was transacted last Friday.

It was observed that forex traders were unable to meet the demand of the customers during the session, resulting in a low transaction value.

The turnover for the trading day stood at $99.33 million, $28.96 million or 29.2 per cent lower than the $128.29 million recorded in the preceding session.

Also, in the black market, the Naira depreciated against the greenback yesterday by N2 to sell at N737/$1 compared with the preceding session’s exchange rate of N735/$1.

But in the peer-to-peer (P2P) segment, the local currency appreciated against its American counterpart on Monday by N1 as it traded at N749/$1 compared with last Friday’s value of N750/$1.

In the interbank segment, the Naira lost N1.27 against the Pound Sterling to quote at N581.09/£1 versus N579.82/£1 but appreciated against the Euro by N2.76 to finish at N507.79/€1 versus N510.55/€1.

The cryptocurrency market waned on Monday as markets continued to react to last Friday’s United States nonfarm payrolls (NFP) report. The payrolls report came in at 250,000 versus expectations of 180,000 jobs.

The number of jobs added to the US economy came in higher than expected, in many’s eyes justifying the Federal Reserve’s decision to hike interest rates by 0.25 per cent.

Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 3.3 per cent to sell at $27,648.62, Ethereum (ETH) fell by 1.7 per cent to $1,847.73, Litecoin (LTC) slid by 7.5 per cent to $77.87, Dogecoin (DOGE) made a 5.6 per cent depreciation to finish at $0.0727, and Ripple (XRP) recorded a 5.1 per cent loss to end at $0.4274.

Further, Solana (SOL) went down by 4.9 per cent to $20.71, Cardano (ADA) depreciated by 2.6 per cent to $0.369, and Binance Coin (BNB) fell by 2.2 per cent to $314.81, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and Binance USD (BUSD) closed flat at $1.00 each.