By Dipo Olowookere
The stop rate of the 182-day treasury bills was on Wednesday slightly increased by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) at the primary market auction (PMA).
This occurred amid a waning appetite for the maturity, according to details of the exercise obtained by Business Post as the apex bank hopes to trigger a fresh demand for it.
Generally, the affinity of investors to the debt instrument was low yesterday as traders preferred to sit on the fence at the moment and watch how the foreign exchange (FX) market in Nigeria plays out.
Lately, the nation has been battling with the FX crisis, forcing some investors to quickly convert their Naira holdings to Dollar and other foreign currencies because of the declining value of the local currency.
Yesterday, this newspaper reported that in two weeks, the domestic currency has lost N31 against the American Dollar at the parallel market as a result of liquidity issues in the forex system.
This may have been responsible for the low appetite for T-bills witnessed yesterday unlike in the previous exercises, where more cash would be chasing the bills.
The CBN had auctioned treasury bills worth N155.9 billion to traders but subscriptions valued at N111.3 billion were received, indicating a subscription level of 71.4 per cent or 28.6 per cent under subscription.
A breakdown showed that N1.6 billion worth of the 91-day tenor was brought to the market at the midweek session but bids worth N1.9 billion were received with N960.7 million allotted at a stop rate of 2.50 per cent, same with the previous exercise.
However, the central bank auctioned N5.9 billion worth of 182-day bills and it got only N4.4 billion, with N3.6 billion allotted at 3.5000 per cent, marginally higher than the 3.4999 per cent, indicating an increase of 0.0001 per cent.
Further, the apex bank auctioned 364-day treasury bills valued at N148.4 billion to traders and it received N105.0 billion, allotting N151.3 billion at a flat stop rate of 7.20 per cent.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka