By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian Naira maintained stability against the Dollar in the black market segment of the foreign exchange (forex) market on Tuesday as its value remained unchanged at N1,700/$1 at the close of business.
However, it was not lucky in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) window during the trading session as it lost N106.05 or 6.8 per cent against the greenback to quote at N1,658.97/$1, in contrast to the N1,552.92/$1 it was exchanged on Monday.
The local currency traded flat against the Pound Sterling and the Euro in the official market yesterday to sell at N2,089.62/£1 and N1,749.12/€1, respectively.
The FX turnover at the spot market, according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange, went down by $125.85 million or 36.6 per cent to $217.86 million from $343.71 million.
This happened as Nigeria’s headline inflation rate for September 2024 rose to 32.70 per cent, according to the latest Consumer Price Index report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), from the August 2024 figure of 32.15 per cent.
It was the first uptick in three months after inflation dropped consecutively in the previous two months of July and August.
Food prices remain a key driver of inflation, with the food inflation rate climbing to 37.77 per cent in September 2024, a notable rise of 7.13 per cent from the 30.64 per cent recorded in the same period last year.
The Nigerian government recently lowered barriers to the importation of food into the country to ease the high cost, but accessing FX has been a challenge.
In the cryptocurrency market, the bulls were in charge, with analysts attributing the renewed interest to the crypto-friendly Republican presidential candidate, Mr Donald Trump.
He is currently leading his opponent Kamala Harris on Polymarket, a decentralised prediction market platform that allows users to trade on outcomes of real-world events using cryptocurrencies.
Litecoin (LTC) rose by 6.5 per cent to $71.22, Bitcoin (BTC) appreciated by 2.6 per cent to $67,093.86, Dogecoin (DOGE) increased by 2.3 per cent to $0.1186, Binance Coin (BNB) jumped by 1.4 per cent to $591.48, Ethereum (ETH) grew by 0.3 per cent to $2,610.96, and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) accumulated 0.1 per cent to sell at $0.9999.
Conversely, Cardano (ADA) dropped by 1.2 per cent to $0.3541, Ripple (XRP) recorded a 0.8 per cent depreciation to settle at $0.565, Solana (SOL) slipped by 0.5 per cent to sell at $153.99, and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00.