The Nigerian Naira experienced a significant drop against the US Dollar in the first trading session of the week, marking its first major decline across the foreign exchange market segments since the Central Bank of Nigeria began clearing forex backlogs last week.
The official market, known as the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM), saw the local currency lose 4.2 percent or N32.88 against the greenback, settling at N809.02/$1 compared to last Friday’s rate of N776.14/$1.
The drop was attributed to an 11.3 percent decrease in the supply of FX to the spot market, which fell from $98.82 million to $87.65 million.
Indications showed that the latest injection from the CBN didn’t cover most Tier-1 banks which still have their obligations not met and this returned pressure to the market.
In the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window, the Nigerian currency depreciated on the American currency yesterday by N88 to close at N980/$1 versus the previous session’s rate of N892/$1.
In the parallel market, the value of the Naira against the US Dollar weakened on Monday by N20 to settle at N960/$1, in contrast to the preceding session’s N940/$1.
However, the Naira witnessed no movement against the Pound Sterling and the Euro in the official market during the trading day, remaining unchanged at N966.43/£1 and N839.39/€1 apiece.
In the cryptocurrency market, Solana (SOL) continued to improve its value amid a new interest following the FTX debacle, recording its biggest gain after rising by 7.2 per cent to sell at $42.54.
Further, Binance Coin (BNB) rose by 3.5 percent to $238.42, Ethereum (ETH) went up by 1.9 percent to $1,864.49, Dogecoin (DOGE) made a 1.6 percent appreciation to sell at $0.0691, Bitcoin (BTC) grew by 1.4 per cent to close at $35,140.72, Litecoin (LTC) expanded by 0.9 per cent to trade at $72.09, Cardano (ADA) jumped by 0.9 percent to $0.33, and Ripple (XRP) increased by 0.8 percent to $0.6172, while Binance USD (BUSD) and the US Dollar Tether (USDT) traded flat at $1.00, respectively.
