Naira Depreciates at NAFEM by 1.37% to N1,562.66/$1 as CBN MPC Meeting Begins

By Adedapo Adesanya Due to foreign exchange (FX) supply constraints, the Naira depreciated at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM)

The Naira lost value against the Dollar at the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM) on Monday due to a decrease in foreign exchange (FX) supply.

Specifically, the Naira depreciated by 1.37 per cent or N21.14 against the Dollar to sell for N1,562.66/$1 at the official forex market compared with last Friday’s N1,541.32/$1.

The loss occurred at the commencement of the 297th Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The Governor of the CBN, Mr Yemi Cardoso, is expected to announce the decision of the team regarding the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) on Tuesday.

Analysts expect the MPC to pause a rate hike after inflation cools down for two consecutive months.

Meanwhile, the turnover at the official forex market on Monday decreased by 47.4 per cent or $90.36 million to $100.21 million from the previous session’s $190.57 million.

However, the domestic currency appreciated against the British Pound Sterling during the trading day in the spot market by N40.77 to quote at N2,067.87/£1 versus the last session’s rate of N2,108.64/£1.

It also improved its value against the Euro by N10.18 to N1,762.43/€1 from last Friday’s rate of N1,772.61/€1.

The Naira is weakening as the central bank slows the pace of its interventions, which it had commenced to stabilise the foreign exchange market after promising to address the supply gap to ensure market stability.

A look at the black market segment of the FX market showed that the Nigerian currency weakened against the greenback yesterday by N5 to trade at N1,665/$1 compared with the preceding trading day’s N1,660/$1.

As for the cryptocurrency market, it was majorly negative on Monday with investors and traders going on a profit-taking spree that led to benchmarked tokens ending southwards.

Out of the ten benchmarked tokens, only Cardano (ADA) and Binance Coin (BNB) gained 1.9 per cent and 1.3 per cent, respectively, to trade at $0.362 and $602.37.

Litecoin (LTC) recorded a 2.3 per cent loss to settle at $66.42, Ethereum (ETH) dropped by 0.9 per cent to $2,632.11, Ripple (XRP) also fell by 0.9 per cent to $0.5861, Bitcoin (BTC) shed 0.8 per cent to quote at $63,209.57, Dogecoin (DOGE) lost 0.5 per cent to sell at $0.1075, Solana (SOL) slumped by 0.3 per cent to $146.26, while the US Dollar Tether (USDT) and the US Dollar Coin (USDC) traded flat at $1.00 apiece.

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