By Dipo Olowookere
The thirst of investors for longer tenor treasury bills at the detriment of the shorter tenor continued on Thursday at the Open Market Operations (OMO).
Business Post reports that the N100 billion worth of the 91-day bills offered for sale by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) received no single bid yesterday, whereas, the N300 billion worth of the 259-day instrument had fair subscriptions from traders.
At the close of Thursday’s exercise, the apex bank raised the sum of N276.8 billion from the sale of the 259-day paper.
This consequently helped in calming what would have been an aggressively bullish treasury bills session.
However, the T-bills market traded on a slightly positive note, following increased inflows from OMO T-bills maturities (N109 billion) and net PMA repayments (N130 billion) into the system.
Today trading section is expected to be relatively calm as market players anticipate funding for retail forex sales and a likely OMO auction by the central bank.
Meanwhile, the money market rates reduced yesterday as inflows from OMO T-bills maturities and net PMA repayments helped to bolster system liquidity to N658 billion long, having also accounted for debits for N277 billion OMO auction sales.
While the overnight rate dropped to 3.42 percent from 4.50 percent, the Open Buy Back (OBB) rate fell to 3.08 percent from 3.75 percent.
However, the rates are expected to drift higher today as a result of the anticipated funding for retail forex and OMO auction sales.
Adedapo Adesanya