By Dipo Olowookere
Transactions at the nation’s secondary market for treasury bills were bullish on Thursday, October 10, 2019 as investors continue to chew the 2020 budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday.
A day after submitting his budget proposal to a joint session of the National Assembly for the 2020 fiscal year, Mr Buhari finally inaugurated his Economic Advisory Council led by Prof Doyin Salami.
At the event, he said global bodies like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others were churning out inaccurate figures about Nigeria, charging his economic team to make data collection as their major priority.
Business Post reports that at the market yesterday, while investors pondered on this, the average yields of treasury bills plunged by 0.46 percent to settle at 12.45 percent at the close of business.
The most hit by the decline was the 90-day debt instrument, which suffered a 0.32 percent depreciation in its yields to close the trading session at 11.89 against 12.20 percent it finished on Wednesday.
In the same vein, the yield on the 30-day treasury bills depreciated by 0.28 percent to close for the day at 10.87 percent compared with the 11.15 percent it settled at the previous session.
However, yield on the 180-day maturity appreciated on Thursday by 0.09 percent to close at 12.44 percent against 12.35 percent of the previous session, while yield on the 364-day tenor went up by 0.05 percent to 14.60 percent from 14.55 percent.
A peep at the money market on Thursday revealed that the average rates faced north on the back of gains posted by both the Open Buy Back (OBB) rate and the Overnight (OVN) rate.
Business Post reports that the OVN rate increased during the session by 0.43 percent to settle at 5.50 percent, while the OBB rate jumped by 0.29 percent to 4.71 percent.
Consequently, the average money market rates closed at yesterday’s trading session at 5.11 percent after appreciating by 0.36 percent.
Adedapo Adesanya