By Adedapo Adesanya
The local currency moved in diverse directions on Thursday in the official market, which is the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEX), and the black market.
It appreciated against the US Dollar in the official market during the session by N14.83 or 0.94 per cent to quote at N1,566.82/$1, in contrast to the preceding day’s N1,581.65/$1 as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) intervened in the FX market yesterday in a bid to stabilise the volatile landscape.
Data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange indicated that the forex turnover significantly increased by 152.5 per cent or $164.98 million during the session to $273.14 million from the preceding session’s $108.16 million.
However, the domestic currency depreciated against the Pound Sterling in the spot market on Thursday by N26.60 to close at N2,063.96/£1 versus N2,037.36/£1 and shed N21.78 against the Euro to trade at N1,733.23/€1 compared with the previous day’s N1,711.45/€1.
Yesterday, the central bank sold Dollars to the Bureau De Change (BDC) operators at N1,450/$, far below the previous day’s official market rate.
The apex bank sold on the condition that they resell to eligible end-users at a margin not more than 1.5 per cent above the purchase rate.
This came after they missed out on $123 million sold to 46 authorised dealers, which were mainly commercial banks.
But this could not calm nerves in the parallel market, where the Naira lost N20 against the greenback during the session to settle at N1,635/$1 versus the midweek’s closing rate of N1,615/$1.
A look at the cryptocurrency market showed that most of the tokens tracked by this newspaper were in the red zone, with Ripple (XRP) losing 6.2 per cent to $0.5537 after rumours of a potential settlement in the Ripple and US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit turned out not to be the case. Since the market had picked up on the news, market analysts noted that a correction was due.
Cardano (ADA) declined by 5.1 per cent to $0.4256, Dogecoin (DOGE) fell by 3.7 per cent to $0.1259, and Litecoin (LTC) slumped by 1.4 per cent to trade at $71.32.
Further, Bitcoin (BTC) slid by 1.3 per cent to $64,125.12, Binance Coin (BNB) went down by 0.6 per cent to $572.88, Ethereum (ETH) dropped 0.4 per cent to finish at $3,435.97, and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) shed 0.06 per cent to $0.9999, while Solana (SOL) appreciated by 2.7 per cent to $163.96, with the US Dollar Coin (USDC) unchanged at $1.00.