The Naira depreciated against the US Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Wednesday, November 19 amid fresh forex demand pressure.
During the trading session, the value of the local currency weakened against the greenback by N6.75 or 0.47 per cent to trade at N1,454.18/$1 compared with the previous day’s N1,447.43/$1.
The domestic currency also tumbled against the Pound Sterling in the official market at midweek by N4.38 to close at N1,907.89/£1 versus N1,903.31/£1, and lost N4.20 against the Euro to finish at N1,683.36/€1, in contrast to the previous session’s N1,679.16/€1.
Equally, the Naira dropped N6 against the greenback at the GTBank FX counter, closing at N1,453/$1 versus Tuesday’s closing price of N1,447/$1, and depreciated by N5 in the parallel market to quote at N1,465/$1 compared with the N1,460/$1 it quoted in the preceding session.
The forex liquidity conditions tightened further on Wednesday at the FX market, which has continued to reduce the transaction value of the local currency.
The market will be hoping for a reversal a trend of minimal interventions by the apex bank due to increasing FX inflows from foreign portfolio investors and exporters. In recent weeks, the CBN has capped sales at $50 million.
Nigeria’s external reserves reached the $46.7 billion mark, largely attributed to the federal government’s Eurobond issuance and rising FX inflows from offshore investors, giving possible lifeline of increased supply in due course.
As for the crypto market, there were some gains amid cautious sentiment as the US Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) said that the October employment report will scrapped due to the government shutdown and the November jobs numbers won’t be released until after the US Federal Reserve’s December meeting.
The odds of a December rate cut by the US central bank which was nearly 100 per cent as recently as three weeks ago has now tumbled further to just 33 per cent.
Solana (SOL) went up by 3.4 per cent to $143.45, Bitcoin (BTC) rose by 1.5 per cent to $92,180.59, Cardano (ADA) appreciated by 1.2 per cent to $0.4657, and Dogecoin (DOGE) increased by 0.3 per cent to $0.1572.
On the flip side, Binance Coin (BNB) slid by 2.0 per cent to $905.66, Litecoin (LTC) slumped by 0.8 per cent to $92.78, Ripple (XRP) fell by 0.6 per cent to $2.13, and Ethereum (ETH) declined by 0.5 per cent to $3,021.77, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.