By Adedapo Adesanya
The official market of the foreign exchange (FX) market known as the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) plunged on Thursday, May 2 after the Naira returned from the Workers’ Day holiday with 0.84 per cent or N11.71 loss against the US Dollar, closing at N1,402.67/$1 compared with Tuesday’s closing price of N1,390.96/$1.
Also, the domestic currency weakened against the Pound Sterling in the spot market yesterday by N213.34 to sell at N1,667.01/£1 versus the preceding day’s N1,453.67/£1 and against the Euro, it depreciated by N178.68 to trade at N1,425.71/€1, in contrast to the previous session’s value of N1,247.03/€1.
The loss suffered by the local currency occurred amid a slight improvement in the supply of forex to the system, as the value of transactions increased by 3.3 per cent or $7.48 million to $232.84 million from the $225.36 million reported on Tuesday (April 30).
The level at which the Naira is trading now points to weakening Foreign Portfolio Investments (FPIs) after appreciating to a level where the Naira was briefly touted as the best-performing currency globally based on foreign exchange reforms and policies by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN). Now, it appears to be returning to the N1,400 -N1,500 Per Dollar level spurred by waning confidence.
A look at the black market indicated that the value of the Nigerian currency declined against the greenback yesterday by N10 to settle at N1,390/$1 compared with the preceding session’s rate of N1,380/$1.
As for the cryptocurrency market, most of the benchmarked tokens tracked by Business Post finished in the green territory, with Solana (SOL) growing by 7.0 per cent to $139.00, and Dogecoin (DOGE) appreciating by 5.7 per cent to $0.1333.
Further, Bitcoin (BTC) rose by 3.3 per cent to $59,436.13, Binance Coin (BNB) increased by 2.8 per cent to $563.31, Ethereum (ETH) jumped by 2.5 per cent to $2,986.85, Cardano (ADA) moved up by 2.0 per cent to $0.4533, Ripple (XRP) hopped by 1.7 per cent to $0.5192, and Litecoin (LTC) advanced by 0.8 per cent to $84.72, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.