Naira Falls to N1,641/$1 at NAFEM, N1,700/$1 at Black Market

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Naira ended the last trading session of the week at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEX) on a negative note on Friday, October 11.

It lost 1.15 per cent or N18.70 against the United States Dollar yesterday to close at N1,641.27/$1 compared with Thursday’s closing price of N1,622.57/$1.

However, its value remained unchanged against the Pound Sterling and the Euro in the spot market on Friday at N2,126.26/£1 and N1,772.69/€1, respectively.

The FX market experienced a surge in the value of transactions during the trading day by 323.7 per cent or $471.17 million to $616.73 million from the $145.56 million recorded in the preceding trading session.

A look at the black market showed that the local currency weakened against the greenback on Friday by N5 to finish at N1,700/$1 compared with the previous day’s N1,695/$1.

As for the cryptocurrency market, the majority of the benchmarked tokens were in the positive territory as investors quickly shrugged off worries over slightly hotter inflation readings, turning their attention to a fiscal policy update from China.

Investors anticipate more financial stimulus for the ailing Chinese economy and financial markets, which could reverberate in the digital asset market, adding to the government’s September plans of rate cuts and liquidity support for the market to rile up a slowing economy.

Yesterday, the value of Bitcoin (BTC) appreciated by 3.5 per cent to $62,735.55, Dogecoin (DOGE) rose by 3.3 per cent to sell at $0.1112, and Solana (SOL) recorded a 3.1 per cent jump to trade at $145.49.

Further, Binance Coin (BNB) went up by 2.6 per cent to settle at $574.53, Cardano (ADA) improved its value by 2.5 per cent to $0.3533, Litecoin (LTC) added 2.0 per cent to quote at $65.94, and Ethereum (ETH) expanded by 1.7 per cent to $2,445.61.

On the flip side, Ripple (XRP) depreciated by 0.2 per cent to finish at $0.5381, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.