By Dipo Olowookere
As predicted earlier this week by analysts at Business Post, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) raise the treasury bills rates at Wednesday’s primary market auction (PMA). READ IT HERE.
Results from the exercise showed that the 91-day bills rate was slightly raised from 10.96 percent to 10.98 percent, the 182-day paper moved from 12.69 percent to 13.49 percent, while the 364-day note went from 13.45 percent to 14.40 percent.
During the PMA, the central bank raised a total of N144.8 billion from the N263.4 billion worth of subscriptions received from investors.
A breakdown showed that N7.85 billion worth of the 91-day bill, N43.52 billion worth of the 182-day paper, and N93.92 billion of the 364-day note were sold by the apex bank to market players.
Business Post observed that during the exercise, investors showed huge interest in the one-year paper, which got N212 billion worth of subscriptions.
At the secondary treasury bills market, yields slightly inched higher by 0.06 percent following a weaker than expected NTB auction result, which prompted slight selloff on some mid and long tenured maturities.
According to Zedcrest Research, despite the significant boost in system liquidity from FAAC payments in the previous session, trading activities remained very low as market players anticipated a further OMO auction by the CBN to mop up N382 billion in OMO maturities today.
The market is expected to tilt slightly bearish today with the lift in the PMA rates on the 182-day (+95bps) and 364-day bills (+80bps), fuelling speculations for a further hike in OMO rates by the CBN.
