Naira Appreciates by 21.4% to Open Week

After touching one of the lowest levels in recent times last Friday, the Nigerian Naira opened the week with a 21.4 per cent or N256.76 gain on the American Dollar in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Monday, December 11.

On the previous market day, the local currency plunged to N1,099.05/$1 in the official window but at the close of transactions yesterday, it improved its value to N864.29/$1.

This happened as the turnover for the trading session depreciated by $4.89 million or 3.6 per cent to $132.46 million from the $137.35 million recorded in the previous trading session, according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange.

However, the local currency maintained its downward trajectory in the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) window of the foreign exchange (FX) market, losing N30 against the greenback yesterday to close at N1,218/$1 compared with the preceding day’s value of N1,188/$1.

In the black market, the Naira lost N10 against the US Dollar on the first trading session of the week to finish at N1,210/$1, in contrast to the preceding session’s rate of N1,200/$1.

In the official market, the domestic currency weakened against the Pound Sterling on Monday by N154.10 to settle at N1,269.34/£1 compared with the previous day’s N1,046.09/£1 and against the Euro, it depreciated by N131.70 to close at N1,088.59/€1 compared with the previous day’s N956.89/€1.

A look at the cryptocurrency market indicated that Cardano (ADA) posted double-digit growth on Monday after its value went up by 31.3 per cent to $0.6242 due to diverse protocols and noteworthy projects that are boosting demand within the Cardano ecosystem.

Solana (SOL) jumped by 7.8 per cent to sell at $77.09, Ripple (XRP) also recorded a 7.8 per cent appreciation to trade at $0.6918, Dogecoin (DOGE) grew by 7.3 per cent to $0.1046, Litecoin (LTC) went up by 6.9 per cent to trade at $79.31, Binance Coin (BNB) gained 4.8 per cent to sell for $244.18, Bitcoin (BTC) appreciated by 2.4 per cent to $44,183.43, and Ethereum (ETH) rose by 1.3 per cent to $2,382.85, while the US Dollar Tether (USDt) and US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00 each.