November 08, (THEWILL) – The naira plunged deeper to N869.91 per dollar on the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM), formerly Investors’ and Exporters’ (I&E) window, on Tuesday as shown on the FMDQ website.
This was the lowest depreciation in about a week when the local currency touched the record low of N993.82 on October 30 – the worst point since the floating of the Naira on June 14, 2023.
Tuesday’s plunge against Monday’s 809.02/$ rattled traders who had expected the local currency to strengthen on the government’s pronouncements to boost liquidity in the forex market.
The open indicative rate of N798/$ on Tuesday mirrored the striking peak of the spot rate at N1,100/$ with a low of N700/$ during the day’s trading before it ultimately found its equilibrium at N869.91/$
On a more surprising note, the naira displayed an unexpected low point of N1,150/$ at the parallel market on Tuesday against the N950/$ it had recorded earlier in the past week..
Amidst this tumultuous exchange rate scenario, the NAFEM recorded a lower volume of activity with $70.92 million turnover against $87.65 million on the previous day’s trading.
The Nigerian government has boasted that foreign exchange speculators will have their fingers burnt soon as arrangements to boost liquidity materialise with various loans negotiated to shore up the naira.
However, analysts consider this a mere stop-gap and a move towards addressing the symptoms against treating the root cause of the foreign exchange crisis which centres on stimulating the economy into the desired level of productivity.
Sam Diala is a Bloomberg Certified Financial Journalist with over a decade of experience in reporting Business and Economy. He is Business Editor at THEWILL Newspaper, and believes that work, not wishes, creates wealth.
