Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
The average money market rates depreciated on Thursday by 5.6 percent to settle at 10.14 percent, Business Post reports.
This came on the back of the inflows of N33 billion from the maturing Open Market Operations (OMO) bills yesterday, which improved system liquidity.
At the close of transactions yesterday at the money market, the Open Buy Back (OBB) rate declined to 9.71 percent from 15.14 percent.
Similarly, the Overnight (OVN) rate, which closed at 16.29 percent on Wednesday, settled at 10.57 percent on Thursday.
Analysts are of the opinion that the rates should rise today as market players fund for the Retail FX auction by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which should mop up most of the existing system liquidity balance.
In a related development, the secondary market for treasury bills was relatively quiet yesterday with yields rising slightly by 0.05 percent.
Profit taking activities were witnessed on some short and mid tenured maturities during the trading session.
Yields on the one-month bill dropped 0.36 percent to close at 10.77 percent, while the six-month tenor lost 0.03 percent to settle at 13.96 percent.
However, the three-month maturity appreciated by 0.08 percent to close at 11.25 percent, while the 12-month paper ended flat at 14.61 percent.
