By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The yields on the 12-month treasury bills depreciated yesterday as the secondary market closed slightly bullish.
Business Post reports that yields moderated across the short and mid tenors with the exception of the one-month paper, which appreciated by 0.03 percent to settle 14.94 percent.
Yields on the 3-month note declined by 1.41 percent to close at 12.62 percent, the 6-month went down by 0.11 percent to end at 13.52 percent, the 9-month fell by 0.04 percent to finish at 16.54 percent and the 12-month dropped 0.06 percent to settle at 17.29 percent.
At the market on Wednesday, investors cherry-picked on some of the attractive yields in absence of an OMO auction by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and relatively smaller amount of NTB offerings at the Auction, given that the DMO had earlier signalled its intention to repay c.N85bn maturities at the first auction of the year.
At the PMA yesterday, fresh treasury bills worth N74.84 billion were sold to market players with stop rates maintained across all tenors except the 364-day which advanced by 0.05 percent to 14.50 percent.
Zedcrest Research said demand at the auction was moderately robust, with a bid to cover ratio of 1.53X.
“We expect yields to trend higher, as the CBN is expected to resume its spate of OMO interventions in the market to mop up N584 billion in OMO maturities,” it said.
Meanwhile, rates in the money market remained relatively unchanged from their previous levels, with the OBB and OVN rates opening the year at 18.33 percent and 19.42 percent respectively. System liquidity also opened at N120 billion and rates are expected to trend lower today due to expected inflows of N690 billion from OMO and net PMA repayments barring a significant OMO sale by the CBN.
