Trading activities on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, on Wednesday, June 13, stalled movement north as bearish momentum swept through the bourse.
Consequently, the NSE all-share index, ASI, depreciated by 0.35% to close at 39,031.72 basis points as a result of sell offs in Banking and Consumer Goods counters.
Similarly, the market breadth index closed negative with 20 gainers paired against 22 stocks that declined.
Japaul Oil and Maritime Services Plc led the gainers pack growing by 5.88%, while Diamond Bank Plc led the laggards’ chart slumping by 5.00%.
The sectorial performance chart showed the NSE Consumer Goods index dropping by 0.60% on the back of losses in the shares of Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc, Nigerian Breweries Plc and Dangote Flour Mills Plc.
The NSE Banking index dropped 0.47% following the sell-off in the shares of Diamond Bank which lost 5.00%, Unity Bank Plc, which dropped 4.35% and Skye Bank Plc declined 3.95%.
FBN Holdings Plc depreciated 2.62%, Zenith Bank Plc and United Bank for Africa both dipped by1.65% and 1.35% respectively.
On the flip side, the NSE Industrial index added 0.17% due to the buy interest in the shares of Cement Company of Northern Nigeria Plc which appreciated by 3.77%.
Also, the NSE Oil & Gas index appreciated by 0.01% on the back of the gains recorded in the shares of Japaul Oil and Maritime Services and Eterna Plc which closed up by 5.88% and 0.50% each.
United Bank for Africa Plc emerged the most actively traded with 90 million units of shares worth N998 million.
Cryptocurrency tether used to boost bitcoin prices, study finds
John McCrank, Anna Irrera
3 MIN READ
NEW YORK (Reuters) – There is evidence that tether, a digital currency pegged to the U.S. dollar, may have been used to manipulate the price of bitcoin BTC=BTSP and other cryptocurrencies, according to a research paper released by the University of Texas on Wednesday.
FILE PHOTO: A Bitcoin logo is seen on a cryptocurrency ATM in Santa Monica, California, U.S., January 4, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo
“Tether seems to be used both to stabilize and manipulate bitcoin prices,” said the paper’s co-authors, professor John Griffin and doctoral student Amin Shams.
Critics of tether have raised concerns over the past year about whether Tether Limited actually holds $1 in reserve for each tether issued, as it claims. More than $2.2 billion of tether was issued between March 2017 and January 2018, according to the paper.
Regulators worldwide are increasing their scrutiny of cryptocurrency markets. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice have been investigating whether bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices are being manipulated, Bloomberg reported last month.
In December, the CFTC sent subpoenas to Tether and Bitfinex, a popular cryptocurrency exchange that is affiliated with, and shares executives with, Tether. The reason for the subpoena was unclear.
Bitfinex denied that tether issuances could be used to manipulate bitcoin.
“(Neither) Bitfinex nor Tether is, or has ever, engaged in any sort of market or price manipulation,” Bitfinex and Tether Chief Executive Officer JL van der Velde said in a statement.
Bitcoin soared last year, peaking at nearly $20,000 in December, before the price collapsed. It was at $6,624.45 on Wednesday afternoon.
The researchers found that tether issuances rose last year during periods when the price of bitcoin was dropping. When bitcoin was rising, the same pattern could not be found.
Once issued, nearly all tether was moved to Bitfinex and then shifted to other exchanges, where it was used to buy bitcoin, propping up the price, the paper said.
The researchers used algorithms to analyze data from blockchains, the decentralized ledgers that underpin bitcoin and other virtual currencies, between the beginning of March 2017 to the end of March 2018.
The periods with the largest flow of tether accounted for 87 hours, or less than 1 percent, of the data, but were associated with 50 percent of bitcoin’s compounded return, and 64 percent of the returns on six other large cryptocurrencies.
The researchers then did 10,000 simulations looking in each case at 87 random hours from the data and were unable to find similar results.
“Overall, our findings provide substantial support for the view that price manipulation may be behind substantial distortive effects in cryptocurrencies,” they said.
