One-Year T-Bills Record by 250% Subscriptions as Rate Drop 0.02%

September 20, 2018
One-Year T-Bills Record by 250% Subscriptions as Rate Drop 0.02%

By Dipo Olowookere

Yesterday, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sold fresh treasury bills to investors via the primary market auction (PMA).

During the exercise, market players significantly oversubscribed the one-year T-bills 250 percent with rates reducing marginally by 0.02 percent to 13.48 percent from 13.50 percent it cleared in the previous PMA.

Subscriptions worth N419.49 billion were received for the N168.36 billion worth of the 364-day bills offered by the apex bank.

However, the 91-day and 182-day bills were not significantly oversubscribed by market players at the Wednesday’s auction.

For the 91-day bills, the central bank received subscriptions valued at N8.60 billion from the N5.40 billion offered to investors, with the rate staying flat at 11 percent.

For the 182-day instrument, subscriptions worth N11.86 billion were received from market players from the N8.39 billion offered, with the rate clearing at 12.20 percent against 12.30 percent it cleared the last time.

Generally, activities in the T-bills space remained mostly concentrated on the short end of the curve, with rates declining further by one percent down to single digit levels on the October maturities.

This was due to the significantly buoyant level of system liquidity which came on the back of inflows from Paris club payments to states.

There were slight interests on the March maturities, while yields remained relatively unchanged across other tenors as market players remained cautious in anticipation of results from the PMA.

“Despite this significantly positive result, we expect sentiments in the market to be dampened by an OMO auction expected to be floated by the CBN today.

“We however expect strong demand for the 1-yr bill, due to the huge amount of lost bids at the auction. If the CBN fails to offer this bill at the OMO today, there will be a slight rally on that end of the curve,” analysts at Zedcrest Research said.

Dipo Olowookere

Dipo Olowookere is a journalist based in Nigeria that has passion for reporting business news stories. At his leisure time, he watches football and supports 3SC of Ibadan.

Mr Olowookere can be reached via [email protected]

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