Friday, 15th October 2021: The exchange rate between the naira and the US dollar closed at N415.07/$1, at the Investors and Exporters window, where forex is traded officially.
Naira appreciated significantly against the US dollar on Friday, after enduring a huge fall to N422.07/$1 on Thursday, 14th October 2021. The exchange rate gained 1.66% to close the week at N415.07/$1.
On the other hand, the exchange rate at the parallel market fell on Thursday to close at N573.5/$1 compared to N572/$1 recorded in the previous day, representing a depreciation of 0.09%.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s foreign reserve recorded a boost of $200.21 million on Thursday, 14th October 2021 to close at $39.62 billion compared to $39.42 billion recorded as of the previous day. Nigeria’s current reserve level represents the highest since December 2019.
Trading at the official NAFEX window
The exchange rate appreciated against the US dollar on Friday, 15th October 2021 to close the day at N415.07 to a dollar, representing a 1.66% gain compared to N422.07/$1 recorded on Thursday, 14th October 2021.
The opening indicative rate closed at N415.09/$1 on Friday, representing a N1.59 kobo fall compared to N414.5/$1 recorded in the previous trading day.
An exchange rate of N435.3 to a dollar was the highest rate recorded during intra-day trading before it settled at N415.07/$1, while it sold for as low as N404/$1 during intra-day trading, the same as recorded in the previous trading day.
Meanwhile, forex turnover at the official window surged by 165.8% on Friday, 15th October 2021.
Forex turnover rose from $141.94 million recorded on Thursday to $377.28 million on Friday 15th October 2021.
Cryptocurrency watch
The cryptocurrency market continued its bullish trend on Monday as the market gained $16.3 billion as of 6:30 am, representing a 0.63% increase to stand at $2.51 trillion. The positive performance of the market was driven by the 1.28% gain recorded in the flagship asset.
Bitcoin gained 1.3% to trade at $62,286.81 on Monday, while Ethereum recorded a 0.52% gain to trade at $3,865.32. However, XRP declined by 0.15% to trade at $1.09166 as of the time of writing this article.
Meanwhile, the US regulators, SEC are reportedly set to allow the first US Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund to start trading. This is according to a report obtained from Aljazeera.
Twitter boss, Jack Dorsey, who is also the CEO of Square, an American financial technology service provider announced that Square will soon begin investigating technical requirements for building an open-source Bitcoin (BTC) mining system.
Crude oil price
The crude oil market started the week on a positive, surpassing $85 per barrel in the early hours of Monday, 18th October 2021. Brent Crude gained 1.06% to trade at $85.76 per barrel on Monday morning as at 6:32 am
In the same vein, West Texas Intermediate, gained 1.47% to trade at $83.47 per barrel, while the OPEC Basket recorded a gain of 0.87% to trade at $82.5 per barrel. Bonny Light also gained 1.17% to trade at $84.34 per barrel on Monday morning.
The other Nigerian crude, Brass River and Qua Iboe also gained 1.06% each to trade at $84.28 per barrel as at the time of writing this article.
External reserve
Nigeria’s foreign reserve gained $200.21 million on Thursday, 14th October 2021 to close at $39.62 billion compared to $39.42 billion recorded as of the previous day. The latest increase represents a 0.51% increase in the country’s foreign reserve.
The nation’s foreign reserve has gained $2.84 billion so far in the month of October, higher than the $2.76 billion gain recorded in September 2021, while the recent gain puts the year-to-date gain at $4.25 billion.
The recent increase in the reserve position, which has continued since the 25th of August is in line with a recent report suggesting that Nigeria’s foreign reserve position could grow as high as $40 billion by the end of September 2021.
It is worth noting that the reserve is closing in on hitting the $40 billion mark, with the $4 billion raised by the federal government through Eurobond sourced from the international debt market.
