The value of the Naira to the US Dollar further weakened in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEX) on Thursday, December 18 amid renewed forex demand pressure.
Data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) showed that the Nigerian currency lost N2.35 or 0.16 per cent on the greenback to close at N1,457.84/$1 compared with the preceding session’s N1,455.49/$1.
The local currency also moved in the same direction against the Pound Sterling and the Euro in the same market window during the trading session.
It weakened against the British currency by N14.80 to sell for N1,958.03/£1 compared with Wednesday’s closing price of N1,943.28/£1 and tumbled against the European nation’s currency by N5.66 to quote at N1,712.38/€1 versus N1,706.72/€1.
A further N2 was lost by the Naira against the Dollar at the GTBank FX counter yesterday, closing at N1,465/$1 versus the N1,463/$1 it was traded a day earlier, while at the black market, it remained unchanged at N1,475/$1.
FX supply from the central bank, exporters, foreign portfolio investors and non-bank corporate channels remained insufficient to redirect the exchange rate.
Expectations of inflows from Detty December to alleviate need for FX demand have not materialised, as exorbitant local prices seems to be keeping spending at bay.
Despite the depreciation, the Naira outlook remains stable around the trading range even though the local currency has continued to give up early gain.
Meanwhile, the crypto market was down on Thursday due to profit-taking, with about $550 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours on derivatives markets, CoinGlass data shows, flushing out both short and long leveraged trading positions.
Cardano (ADA) gave up 4.3 per cent to sell for $0.35o6, Dogecoin (DOGE) lost 3.9 per cent to trade at $0.1220, Ripple (XRP) depreciated by 3.5 per cent to $1.79, and Solana (SOL) recorded a decline of 3.2 per cent to finish at $119.39.
In addition, Litecoin (LTC) slumped by 2.4 per cent to $74.13, Binance Coin (BNB) fell by 1.5 per cent to $830.55, Bitcoin (BTC) shrank by 0.8 per cent to $85,397.31, and Ethereum (ETH) went down by 0.3 per cent to $2,823.50, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.