Naira Exchanges at N705/US$ at the Black Market

The Nigerian Naira exchanged lower at the parallel market, popularly known as the black market, on Tuesday amid the persistent foreign exchange scarcity and weak foreign revenue generation.

The local currency was exchanged at N705 to a United States Dollar in Lagos, Abuja and a few other states covered by our correspondent.

At the Investors and Exporters’ foreign exchange window, the Naira shed N3.45 from N431.30 it opened the day on Monday, September 5, 2022, to N434.75 at the close of business. This represents a decline of N5.13 or 1.2% from the N429.62 it traded on August 15, 2022.

Currency traders at the Investors and Exporters’ foreign exchange window transacted $99.68 million in trade on Monday, according to the data available at the FMDQ managed forex window.

At the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) regulated foreign exchange section, the Naira was exchanged at N426.28 to the United States while against the British Pounds Sterling it was transacted at N490.2646 on Monday.

The Naira traded at N422.9124 against the Euro common currency.

Crude Oil

Brent crude oil, the international benchmark for Nigerian oil, lost $4.14 from $96.96 a barrel it peaked on Monday when OPEC+ announced plans to cut production for the first time since 2020 to support price, to $92.82 per barrel on Tuesday.

The decline in oil price despite the announced production cuts was due to the report that new COVID-19 restrictions are possibly underway in China, additional interest rate increases and weaker demand for the commodity.

Global energy concern has now shifted from demand to rising interest rates and escalating inflation numbers across the globe.

“The OPEC+ news is now in the market and the focus has temporarily shifted to economic and inflationary concerns amongst which the two relevant factors are the extended COVID lockdowns in China and Thursday’s ECB rate decision,” said Tamas Varga of oil broker PVM.

Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin continues to trade below the $20,000 a coin price level ahead of Ethereum merge scheduled for September 15 to 16.

The highly risky and uncertain process is necessary to move the Ethereum protocol from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS), a process largely expected to reduce gas fees (charges on Ethereum transfer) substantially and help bolster its attractiveness to global project inventors.

On Tuesday, Ether, the token of Ethereum, appreciated by 4.23% to ₦1,169,556 or $1,667.09 per coin while Bitcoin lost 0.31% to ₦13,868,843 or $19,827.62 a coin.

BNB, Binance token, appreciated by 1.98% to ₦197,649 or $280.76 per coin.