The Naira sustained its losing streak at the black market for the third consecutive day on Thursday, depreciating by 0.40% to trade at N755/$1 from the N752/$1 it traded on Wednesday.
Some FX dealers linked lower exchange rate of the local currency to current lull in economic activities as buyers’ traffic to the parallel market continues to slowdown over the past few weeks.
The local currency maintained its sluggish exchange rate trend early trading hours on Thursday against the US dollar at the cryptocurrency Peer-to-Peer (P-2-P) exchange, to trade at an average of N744/$1 as against the N742.20/$1 it exchanged at the previous day.
However, the Naira slightly appreciated by 0.07% against the US dollar at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window in the day under review, trading at N461.09/$1 on Wednesday, up from the N461.42/$1 it traded the preceding day.
Available data from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the official window’s FX turnover on Wednesday indicated that it increased by 25.40% to $132.25 million from the $113.44 million that exchanged hands at the window on Tuesday.
According to the CBN, the local currency’s opening indicative rate at the I&E window in the day under review was N461.3/$1 while it exchanged at N462.11/$1 as the highest rate during intra-day trading session before it settled at N461.09/$1. The Naira traded lowest at N446/$1 during the intra-day trading session.
Meanwhile, the apex bank reported that Nigeria’s external reserves marginally dropped to $36.14 billion on Tuesday from the $36.20 billion that accrued to the reserves on Monday, March 10.
