By Dipo Olowookere
The strong appetite for 364-day treasury bills at the primary market auction on Wednesday further pulled down the stop rate of 0.61 per cent.
Business Post reports that at the preceding exercise, which was held two weeks ago, the stop rate for the one-year bill cleared at 6.50 per cent compared with the 5.89 per cent it cleared yesterday.
Details of the PMA showed that the apex bank offered for sale N111.1 billion worth of the maturity to investors but it received bids valued at N403.0 billion, while N209.9 billion was eventually allotted.
It was observed that the range of bid rates was from 5.44 per cent to 7.68 per cent, according to the results of the market auction.
Just like the preceding T-bills sales, the central bank kept the stop rates of the two other tenors intact amid low hunger for them.
The CBN auctioned N3.5 billion worth of 91-day instrument and it received offers valued at N9.0 billion but allotted N2.0 billion with the rate unchanged at 2.50 per cent. The range of bid rates was between 2.45 per cent and 6.39 per cent.
A look at the 182-day tenor indicated that the apex bank took to the market N4.1 billion worth of the bills but the subscriptions slightly went up to N4.3 billion, with N3.8 billion allotted at 3.50 per cent, the same rate it cleared two weeks ago. The range of bids rates was from 3.47 per cent to 5.50 per cent.
From analysis, treasury bills worth N118.7 billion were offered for sale yesterday by the central bank but the total subscriptions stood at N416.3 billion, with N215.7 billion allotted.
Adedapo Adesanya
I’d advise people to resort to the big microfinance banks like Mutual Trust MFB, Lapo, Piggyvest for their deposit investments. Treasury bills rate are not encouraging at all.