Market News

By Adedapo Adesanya

After being marred by heavy losses in the week, the exchange rate of the Naira against the United States Dollar got a breather on Friday at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange market as it appreciated by N3 or 0.76 per cent to close at N390.25/$1 compared to N393.25/$1 it closed the day before.

This was buoyed by the 52.2 per cent or $109.73 million decline in the demand for FX at the market segment, according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange as transactions worth $100.52 million were recorded as against Thursday’s $210.25 million.

The local currency, however, traded flat against the greenback at the black market, closing at N495/$1, according to data harvested from AbokiFX, a platform for tracking parallel forex market rates.

It was observed that the exchange rate of the Naira against the Euro at the parallel market also remained unchanged at N580/€1 yesterday but lost N10 against the Pound to finish at N645/£1 compared to the previous rate of N635/£1.

At the Bureaux De Change (BDC) segment, data from the Association of the Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) showed that the Naira/Dollar exchange rate remained at N386/$1.

Similarly, the exchange rate of the Naira to the US Dollar remained unchanged at the interbank window at N379/$1 at the close of business on Friday.

Meanwhile, a look at the cryptocurrency market showed that things remained bearish as the Dash (DASH) recorded the heaviest loss, declining by 2.7 per cent to close at N44,835.11.

Litecoin (LTC) lost 2.6 per cent to sell for 34,595.95, Tron (TRX) backslid by 2.4 per cent to N14.52, while Ripple (RPX) made a 1.9 per cent loss to trade at N271.99.

Others such as Bitcoin depreciated by 0.6 per cent to N8,397,920.11 while Ethereum (ETH) went down by 1.5 per cent to sell for N255,501.00.

The US Dollar Tether was, however, the day’s only gainer as it appreciated by 0.3 per cent to N493.30.