By Dipo Olowookere
The treasury bills space was quiet on the last trading day of last week in the absence of an OMO exercise by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
During the previous day’s session, the apex bank issued a No Sale result despite offering N350 billion worth of the debt instruments to market players and receiving subscriptions worth N109.03 billion but at higher stop rates.
At the Friday’s trading day, yields moderated slightly, with some client demand flowing into the market due to absence of the OMO.
According to Zedcrest Research, investors maintained a cautious outlook with significantly lesser volumes than in the previous session.
Market players will remain cautious in anticipation of the next OMO clearing rates by the CBN.
“With expectations of continued OMO interventions by the CBN, we expect rates to remain slightly pressured in the coming week,” the investment company said.
Meanwhile, the Open Buy Back (OBB) and the overnight rates remained slightly pressured above single digits, closing on Friday at 10.67 percent and 12 percent respectively.
This came on the back of outflows for a retail foreign exchange auction by the CBN.
System liquidity which opened the day at N675 billion long was estimated to close the week at N400 billion long, having taken into account estimated outflows for the forex auction debits, and inflows from coupon payments on the March 2024 bond.
The rates are expected to remain slightly pressured going into the new week, with the CBN expected to maintain its pace of OMO and FX interventions in the market.
