Naira stable at official, parallel markets

Nigeria’s naira remained stable against the U.S. dollar at the I&E window of the foreign exchange market on Thursday, data posted on the FMDQ Security Exchange where forex is officially traded showed.

Also, the currency rate remained unchanged on the black market.

This happened as foreign exchange supply plummeted significantly.

According to data posted on the FMDQ Security Exchange where forex is officially traded, the naira closed at N410.50 at the trading session of the NAFEX window.

Thursday’s performance saw an intraday high of N392.00 and a low of N437.32 before closing at N410.50 again on Thursday.

This occurred as forex turnover skyrocketed by 429.93 per cent, with $116.16 million recorded as against the $21.92million posted in the previous session on Wednesday.

In a similar manner, the local unit remained unchanged against the U.S. dollar at the unofficial market on Thursday, data posted on abokiFX.com, a website that collates parallel market rates in Lagos showed.

The data posted showed that the naira again closed at N482.00 at the black market, the same rate it traded since the beginning of the week.

Again, this leaves the spread between the unofficial market and the I&E window exchange rate at N71.50, which translates to a gap of 14.83 per cent.