By Dipo Olowookere
The secondary market for treasury bills in Nigeria remained bearish at the midweek trading session on sustained selling pressure from traders.
Business Post reports that this pushed the average yields higher at the close of transactions yesterday by 0.16 percent to settle at 15.08 percent.
Apart from the one-month debt instrument, every other maturities appreciated on Wednesday. The 30-day bill went down by 0.03 percent yesterday to close at 14.84 percent.
Yield on the 90-day tenor rose by 0.46 percent to finish at 15.00 percent, the 180-day instrument increased by 0.06 percent to settle at 15.66 percent, while the 365-day maturity appreciated by 0.15 percent to finish at 14.82 percent.
Today, treasury bills worth N92 billion are expected to mature at the market and investors are not anticipating any OMO auction from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The last OMO sale by the apex bank was last week.
With these in mind, the yields are anticipated to trend northwards at Thursday’s trading session.
Meanwhile, rates at the money market yesterday increased by 4.65 percent to close at 24.11 percent. This came on the back of the 4.29 percent rise recorded by the Open Buy Back (OBB) rate and the 5.00 percent hike posted by the Overnight (OVN) rate on Wednesday.
At the close of business, the OBB rate settled at 22.86 percent from 18.57 percent of the previous day, while the OVN rate ended at 25.36 percent against 20.36 percent it closed on Wednesday.
With depressed liquidity levels, the money market rates are anticipated to remain high.
Adedapo Adesanya