By Dipo Olowookere
Bullish sentiment prevailed on the secondary market for treasury bills in Nigeria on Friday, with yields slightly moderating at the close of business.
Business Post reports that the average yields depreciated by 0.49 percent yesterday as all the tenors suffered various degrees of decline.
This was as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) refused to conduct an Open Market Operations (OMO) auction like it had aggressively done in the past sessions.
The heaviest drop in yield occurred on the one-month maturity, which went down by 1.64 percent and was followed by the 3-month tenor, which fell by 0.18 percent, the 12-month maturity, which dropped 0.08 percent, and the 6-month tenor, which moderated by 0.06 percent.
At the close of transactions, yield on the one-month paper closed at 10.42 percent, the 3-month note at 11.84 percent, 6-month bill at 14.23 percent and the 12-month paper at 17.40 percent
It was observed that the absence of an OMO sale on Friday triggered slight buying interests across the curve.
According to those at Zedcrest Research, the yields should remain relatively flat opening the new week, as the CBN is expected to resume with its OMO and Wholesale FX auctions.
Meanwhile, rates in the money market remained relatively unchanged from previous levels as system liquidity remained robust at N250 billion positive, having accounted for outflows for bond auction settlement and retail FX funding.
The Open Buy Back (OBB) and Overnight (OVN) rates consequently ended the session at 11.07 percent and 11.86 percent respectively.
“We expect rates to inch slightly higher opening next week, as the CBN is expected to resume its OMO and wholesale FX interventions consequently tightening system liquidity,” Zedcrest Research said.
