The Naira stabilized its exchange rate against the US dollar at the parallel market on Monday, to trade at an average rate of N746/S1 in the early hours of the day, the same rate it traded at last Friday.
Some parallel market FX dealers linked the stability of the local currency to low demand for the US dollar as business activities still remained low across the broad spectrum of the nation’s economy due to previous weeks’ cash crunch.
Similarly, the local currency sustained its rebound trajectory by 0.07% at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window last Friday, to close at N461.33/$1 as against the N461.67/$1 it exchanged at during the previous day’s trading session.
But then, the Naira could not sustain its rate stability trend at the cryptocurrency Peer-to-Peer (P-2-P) exchange on Monday as it slightly depreciated by 1.61%, to trade at an average of N746.45/$1 from the N734.6/$1 it traded last Friday.
Available data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) at the I&E window trading session last Friday reflected that the FX turnover increased by 201.61% to $241.38 million from the $80.03 million that exchanged hands at the window the preceding day
The CBN’s data also indicated that the local currency’s opening indicative rate at the I&E window in the day under review closed at N461.5/$1 while it traded at N462.43/$1 as the highest rate during intra-day trading session before it settled at N461.33/$1. The Naira traded as low as N460/$1 during the intra-day trading session.
Meanwhile, the apex bank reported that Nigeria’s external reserves decreased to $35.78 billion last Thursday, 23 March, from the $35.81 billion that accrued to the reserves as of the previous day.
