Naira remains stable at 497/$ as Dollar slumps by 0.6%

Nigeria’s local currency on Tuesday, January 17, remained static at the parallel segment of the Nigerian Currency Market, closing flat at N497/$1.

The Naira, however crashed against the British Pound Sterling trading at N597 and also weakened against the Euro trading at N521 at the black market.

On Monday, the Nigerian currency at the parallel or black market segment of the Nigerian foreign exchange market traded at N497 to one U.S dollar.

The Naira had firmed up against the British Pounds Sterling closing at N595 against the rate of N597 it traded for on Friday. Meanwhile, it weakened against the Euro, exchanging at N517, in contrast to the rate of N515, which it traded for on Friday.

Meanwhile, the U.S dollar, on Tuesday, January 17, dipped by 0.6 percent against a basket of currencies on U.S. President-elect Donald Trump comment that the strong greenback was hurting U.S. competitiveness.

The greenback thus dropped to a one-month low Tuesday after President-elect Donald Trump described the currency as “too strong”, casting new uncertainty onto the dollar’s post-election rally.

The dollar surged at the end of 2016 on expectations that stimulus promised by Trump on the campaign trail would boost U.S. economic growth and feed demand for the dollar.

The dollar fell as low as 112.74 yen JPY= in early North American trading, with investors also citing Trump’s tweets criticizing a Republican plan on border tax adjustments which had been expected to support the dollar.

Analysts have suggested in recent weeks that the greenback may have hit its peak when it touched a 14-year high earlier this month. Since then, the dollar has consolidated in most currency pairs and against a basket of six major currencies .DXY that track its value, hitting its lowest since Dec. 8 on Tuesday.