The value of the Naira further depreciated by 0.72 per cent or N9.90 against the United States Dollar to N1,380.54/$1 in the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEX) on Wednesday, June 24, in contrast to Tuesday’s exchange rate of N1,370.64/$1.
Equally, the local currency weakened against the Pound Sterling in the same official market yesterday by N4.88 to close at N1,815.63/£1 versus the previous session’s N1,810.75/£1, and lost N2.61 on the Euro to sell at N1,563.63/€1 compared with the preceding day’s N1,561.02/€1.
However, at the GTBank forex counter, the domestic currency maintained stability against the US Dollar during the session at N1,380/$1, and at the parallel market, it closed flat at N1,395/$1.
Rising FX payments and a strong US Dollar have generally put significant pressure on emerging-market currencies, like the Naira.
According to the data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), NFEM interbank FX turnover was relatively steady at $125.588 million across 126 deals, from $125.314 million the previous day.
Interbank FX activity among financial institutions has fluctuated amid a sharp slowdown in forex market interventions by the apex bank, with more than six weeks of no support for the local currency.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s foreign reserves increased further to $51.142 billion, while global oil prices entered the lower $70s.
Meanwhile, in the cryptocurrency market, nearly $1 billion worth of futures positions were liquidated across crypto majors to tokenised versions of stocks such as Micron Technology Inc (MU) and Sandisk (SNDK).
The dip triggered roughly $430 million in long liquidations on Bitcoin-tracked futures, or bets on higher prices that were automatically closed as the price fell.
Thursday’s PCE inflation print, the Fed’s preferred price gauge, is the next data point that could move the market in either direction, with Dogecoin (DOGE) down by 2.4 per cent to $0.0771.
Further, Bitcoin (BTC) fell by 1.9 per cent to $61,584.02, Ethereum (ETH) shed 1.6 per cent to trade at $1,645.50, Ripple (XRP) depreciated by 1.6 per cent to $1.08, Binance Coin (BNB) slumped by 1.5 per cent to $570.95, Cardano (ADA) crashed by 1.1 per cent to $0.1495, and Solana (SOL) slipped by 1.0 per cent to $69.19.
But TRON (TRX) gained 0.1 per cent to finish at $0.3288, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) remained unchanged at $1.00 each.
