By Adedapo Adesanya
The exchange rate of the Naira to the Dollar in the official market segment of the foreign exchange (FX) market, the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM), caused anxiety on Monday.
Data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange showed that the Nigerian currency weakened against the greenback in the first trading session of the week by 51.2 per cent or N456.72 to close at N1,348.62/$1 compared with last Friday’s closing price of N891.90/$1.
However, the local currency traded flat against the Pound Sterling and the Euro in the spot market yesterday at N1,133.28/£1 and N969.92/€1, respectively.
It was observed that the supply of forex to the market affected the performance of the domestic currency during the session, as the turnover for the official market went down by 36.3 per cent or $36.68 million to $64.29 million from the $100.97 million reported in the preceding trading session.
On Monday, it was reported that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had injected an additional $500 million into the FX market to clear the country’s large FX backlog.
The new release of $500 million from the central bank is coming some days after the sum of $2 billion was made available to settle part of the $7 billion forex backlogs owed foreign airline operators and others.
The CBN said it plans to clear the FX backlog now estimated at $5 billion within a short space of time as it seeks to attract investment back into the economy.
However, this did not support the Nigerian Naira in black market on Monday, which plunged by N30 against the US Dollar to quote at N1,450/$1, in contrast to the preceding session’s value of N1,420/$1.
Also, the local currency depreciated against its American counterpart yesterday in the peer-to-peer (P2P) segment of the forex market by N35 to sell at N1,421/$1 compared with the previous session’s N1,386/$1.
Meanwhile, in the cryptocurrency market, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) broke above the $43,000 level on Monday as the coin extended its recent gains. It has fought back into the green for the year following steep losses after the long-awaited approval of spot BTC ETFs.
Bitcoin (BTC) jumped by 3.1 per cent to sell at $43,208.43, Ethereum (ETH) gained 2.3 per cent to close at $2,311.41, Cardano (ADA) recorded a 7.6 per cent increase to $0.5273, Solana (SOL) appreciated by 6.0 per cent to $101.31, and Dogecoin (DOGE) grew by 3.7 per cent to $0.0819.
Further, Ripple (XRP) recorded a 2.4 per cent growth to trade at $0.5381, Binance Coin (BNB) expanded by 1.8 per cent to $310.20, and Litecoin (LTC) improved by 0.4 per cent to $68.43, while the US Dollar Coin (USDC) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) retained parity at $1.00 each.
Dipo Olowookere