Naira depreciates at black market despite improved demand at I&E window

Monday, February 21, 2022: At the official Investors and Exporters (I&E) window, the naira and the US dollar exchange rate closed at N416.67/$1, marking the first positive movement in the official market in four trading days.

On Monday, February 21st, 2022, the exchange rate at the I&E window increased by 0.02 percent to close at N416.67/$1, up from N416.75/$1 in the previous trading session.

Meanwhile, a total of $141.31 million in foreign exchange value was moved on Monday, more than double the $64.03 million transferred the day before.

On the other side, the Naira fell marginally by 0.17 percent on Monday, February 21, 2022, to settle at $576/$1 compared to N575/$1 on Friday, February 18, 2022. According to data gathered from BDC operators interviewed by Nairametrics, this is the case.

The exchange rate on the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) forex market declined by 0.18 percent on Tuesday morning, trading at a low of N582.05 to a dollar, down from N581/$1 on Monday, February 21st, 2022.

Trading at the NAFEX(Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Rate Fixing) official window

On Monday, February 21st, 2022, the Investors and Exporters window's exchange rate closed at N416.67/$1, up 0.02 percent from the previous trading session's rate of N416.75/$1.

It's worth mentioning that this is the first time the local currency has moved higher in the official FX market in the last four trading sessions.

On Monday, the opening indicative rate was N415.9/$11. In comparison to the N415.85/$1 reported on Friday, February 18th, 2022, this implies a 5 kobo depreciation.

Over intra-day trade, the highest rate recorded was N444/$1 before it ended at N416.67/$1, while it sold for as low as N410/$1 during the same period.

Meanwhile, on Monday, February 21, 2022, currency turnover at the official window increased by 120.69 percent to $141.31 million.

Forex turnover at the I&E window surged to $141.31 million on Monday from $64.03 million on Friday, according to data tracked by Nairametrics from FMDQ.

The Crypto Market

Following a 1.36 percent drop in the previous trading session, the crypto market started trading on Tuesday on the downside, with the industry market capitalization falling 1.42 percent to $1.626 trillion in the early hours of Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022.

In a similar vein, bitcoin fell 1.19 percent to $36,610 at 6:14 a.m. on Tuesday. In the previous trading session, the flagship crypto-asset had lost 1.87 percent of its value. In the meantime, despite a slight increase in the price of Ethereum on Monday, it began the day on Tuesday with a 2.25 percent drop, trading at $2,511.41.

As of press time, the price of Solana had dropped 1.56 percent to $81.6975, Terra had dropped 1.95 percent to $49.1482538, and Uniswap had dropped 2.23 percent to $8.34.