Market News

By Ahmed Rahma, Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira’s recent volatility continued as it closed the week losing N4.50 or 1.11 per cent on the Dollar to return to N411/$1 at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange market on Friday, March 5.

At the preceding session, the local currency traded against the greenback at the market segment at N406.50/$1 and it was observed that the Naira was plunged into another depreciation by a significant increase in the demand for FX.

According to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange, transactions worth $83.93 million were recorded at the session, $16.94 million or 25.3 per cent higher than the $66.99 million recorded on Thursday.

However, at the black market, the Naira maintained stability against the American currency to trade at N480/$1, but depreciated against the Pound Sterling and Euro.

Business Post reports that at the unregulated segment of the market, the Naira depreciated against the British currency by N3 to sell at N675/£1 in contrast to N672/£1 it traded the previous day and lost N2 against the Euro to trade at N582/€1 compared with N580/€1 of the previous day.

At the interbank segment of the market, the domestic currency still remained flat against the US Dollar at N379/$1 and at the Bureaux De Change (BDC) window, the value of the Nigerian currency against the American currency remained unchanged at N395/$1 on Friday.

Meanwhile, at the cryptocurrency market, only Bitcoin (BTC) closed in the positive territory as it gained 0.4 per cent to trade at N31,388,202.00.

The Ripple (XRP) depreciated by 1.5 per cent to trade at N293.99, the US Dollar Tether (USDT) lost 2.2 per cent to sell for N680, Ethereum (ETH) fell by 2.7 per cent to trade at N998,100.01; Dash (DASH) declined by 1.9 per cent to close at N136,000; Litecoin (LTC) decreased by 2.5 per cent to trade at N115,750; while the Tron (TRX) went down by 1.6 per cent to N31.98.