Value of Naira Drops at Official Market, Closes Flat at Others

By Adedapo Adesanya

The demand for foreign exchange (FX) at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) weakened the value of the Naira on Friday by 25 Kobo or 0.05 per cent against the American Dollar to N461.50/$1 compared with the previous day’s N461.25/$1.

The FMDQ Securities Exchange reported that forex trades at the official market stood at $96.81 million, with trading bidding the Naira to the greenback as high as N462.00/$1 and as low as N440.00/$1 during the session.

However, the exchange rate of the local currency to its US counterpart remained unchanged yesterday at N760/$1 in the Peer-2-Peer (P2P) window of the market.

Similarly, the domestic currency maintained stability against the United States currency at N748/$1 at the close of business on Friday in the parallel market window.

But in the interbank segment, the Naira depreciated against the British Pound Sterling by N8.64 to close at N562.71/£1, in contrast to Thursday’s rate of N554.07/£1 and fell by N1,37 against the Euro to trade at N493.09/€1 versus the preceding day’s N491.72/€1.

As for the digital currency market, it was bullish despite information that the parent company of troubled cryptocurrency lender, Genesis, Global Capital, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after being pummeled by two of 2022’s biggest industry collapses, those of hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and exchange FTX.

Market analysts noted that the filing for bankruptcy by Genesis removes a negative overhang from the market, and crypto investors can finally focus on fundamentals.

Bitcoin (BTC) jumped 6.3 per cent to sell at $22,310.25, Ethereum (ETH) grew by 5.8 per cent to $1,637.48, Solana (SOL) recorded an 11.9 per cent rise to trade at $23.98, Cardano (ADA) added 6.5 per cent to quote at $0.3603, Litecoin (LTC) got a 5.6 per cent boost to settle at $88.69, Dogecoin (DOGE) expanded by 5.1 per cent to trade at $0.0855, Ripple (XRP) added 4.3 per cent to finish at $0.4099, and Binance Coin (BNB) rose by 3.0 per cent to $302.32.

Binance USD (BUSD) and the United States Tether (USDT) remained unchanged at $1.00 apiece.