By Dipo Olowookere
The refusal of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to control excess liquidity in the financial system further reduced treasury bills yields on Friday.
Throughout this week, the apex bank did not issue any OMO bills which it uses to control inflation by mopping up excess cash from the system.
Business Post reports that the last Open Market Operations (OMO) conducted by the central bank was last Thursday, where it sold N144.3 billion worth of the debt instrument.
The continued absence of this exercise has kept the secondary market for treasury bills bullish, with yields further declining.
At the close of transactions yesterday, the average T-bills yields depreciated by 0.13 percent to settle at 11.98 percent.
There were declines across the maturities except for the three-month bill, which slightly appreciated by 0.07 percent to close at 10.60 percent.
The one-month instrument dropped 0.16 percent to finish at 11.13 percent, the six-month bill went down by 0.28 percent to end at 12.49 percent, while the 12-month declined by 0.16 percent to settle at 13.71 percent.
At the money market yesterday, the average rates went down by 1.29 percent to finish for the day at 4.93 percent. This was as the system liquidity remained robust at about N290 billion.
When market closed on Friday, the Open Buy Back (OBB) rate dropped to 4.57 percent from 5.86 percent, while the Overnight (OVN) rate depreciated to 5.29 percent from 6.57 percent.
According to analysts at Cowry Asset, “We expect rates to trend slightly higher on Monday, as banks fund for the weekly wholesale FX auction by the CBN.”
