Naira drops to N680/$ at parallel market

The naira, on Wednesday, depreciated against the dollar at the parallel market as it traded for N680 per dollar.

Last week, the naira closed at N665 to a dollar at the street market.

The street traders put the buying price of the dollar at N665 and the selling price at N680, leaving a profit margin of N15.

They said scarcity has returned to the FX market.

On the official market, the naira appreciated by 0.52 percent to close at N428.75 to a dollar on Tuesday, according to FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange, a platform that oversees foreign-exchange trading in Nigeria.

The foreign exchange market had witnessed appreciation in the past one week after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission raided a BDC hub in Abuja.

The EFCC accused some BDC operators of mopping up foreign currencies, especially the dollar, to either hoard or smuggle the funds out of the country.

It therefore vowed to clamp down on persons and organisations hoarding foreign currencies across key commercial cities such as Kano, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu and Calabar.

The Chief Executive Officer of Financial Derivatives Company, Bismarck Rewane,  recently said the naira was overvalued by 200 percent and projected that the official rate would be devalued next month.