Naira depreciates further at parallel market, trades at N1,520/$

The naira depreciated to N1,520 per dollar at the parallel section of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Monday.

This signifies a 3.4 percent decline from the N1,470/$ traded on May 10.

The bureau de change (BDC) operators, popularly known as street traders, put the buying price of the dollar at N1,490 and the selling price at N1,520 — leaving a profit margin of N30.

At the official window, the local currency depreciated by 0.80 percent against the dollar to close at N1,478.11 on Monday — from the N1,466.31 traded on May 10. 

According to FMDQ Securities Exchange, a platform that oversees official FX trading in Nigeria, an exchange rate of N1,490 to the dollar was the highest rate recorded during trading and the lowest rate was N1,322/$.

Meanwhile, Olayemi Cardoso, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), on Monday, said the apex bank had been “reoriented” to focus on price and monetary stability.

Cardoso said the official FX market has been stabilised.

According to the governor, investors previously had a “tendency to head for the window” in response to currency fluctuations, however, there has been a “fundamental shift”.

Cardoso said investors are getting more comfortable with the official window.