Naira begins new week on shaky grounds

Naira fell again on strong holiday demand and continued its depreciation against the US dollar at the official market due to strong demand by importers and citizens looking to travel out of the country.

Data from FMDQ showed the Naira exchanged at N415.07/$1 on Friday, December 17 at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window of the foreign exchange (forex) market

This was a marginal loss of 0.01 per cent or 2 kobo when compared to N415.05/$1 it was traded at the previous session.

The poor performance of the Nigerian currency to its American counterpart happened despite the FX category posting low forex transactions, according to data from the FMDQ Securities Exchange.

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The turnover for the trading session stood at $151.03 million, 54.4 per cent or $180.08 million lower than the previous day’s turnover of $331.11 million.

However, the local currency showed no movement against the American currency at the interbank window of the forex market at the closing session for the week. This was because the exchange rate remained intact at N411.91/$1 at the close of business.

But the Nigerian Naira appreciated against the British Pound Sterling by N3.33 on Friday to trade at N547.35/£1 versus the preceding session’s N550.68/£1 and gained 87 kobo against the Euro to close the day at N466.24/€1 compared with N467.11/€1 of the previous day.

At the black market traders over the weekend sold dollars to Nigerians at Okota and Ikeja at N574/$.