The Naira fell to N1,602.69/$1 in the American currency in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Friday, May 2.
Data showed that the Nigerian currency weakened against the US Dollar during the session by 0.02 per cent or N3.20 after it traded at N1,599.49/$1 in the previous trading session, which was on Wednesday, as the market closed on Thursday for Workers’ Day.
In the same vein, the domestic currency depreciated against the Pound Sterling in the same market segment by N3.64 to trade at N2,133.30/£1 compared with Wednesday’s value of N2,129.66/£1 and lost N5.92 on the Euro to sell for N1,820.24/€1, in contrast to the previous trading day’s N1,814.32/€1.
However, in the parallel market, the Nigerian currency appreciated against the greenback yesterday by N5 to quote at N1,605/$1 versus the preceding session’s N1,610/$1.
In the cryptocurrency market, news that the US and China are working on a trade deal swayed investors as it appears that the market is also skeptical that a deal will be reached this month.
According to a China state media post on social media, the US has proactively reached out to China through multiple channels, hoping to hold discussions on the tariff issue.
The speed and intensity of the tariffs the White House announced earlier this year panicked the market, leading to a significant drop in assets including cryptocurrencies.
So far, it is not clear what the eventual outcome will be but Litecoin (LTC) went down by 1.4 per cent to $86.81, Cardano (ADA) slumped by 0.7 per cent to $0.6981, Solana (SOL) declined by 0.5 per cent to $147.91, Dogecoin (DOGE) slid by 0.4 per cent to $0.1778, and Bitcoin (BTC) shed 0.1 per cent to sell at $96,336.57.
But Ethereum (ETH) rose by 0.6 per cent to $1,826.96, Ripple (XRP) grew by 0.4 per cent to $2.20, and Binance Coin (BNB) expanded by 0.3 per cent to $597.94, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded at $1.00 each.