By Dipo Olowookere
The strong appetite of investors for the one-year treasury bills is already taking its toll on the stop rate of the debt instrument of the government.
On Wednesday, the rate further depreciated by 0.55 per at the primary market as the bill cleared at 6.80 per cent compared with 7.35 per cent of the previous exercise two weeks ago.
Business Post observed that the spike in the subscription for this particular tenor allowed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which conducted the PMA for the Debt Management Office (DMO) on behalf of the federal government, to slice the rate.
From the analysis of the T-bills sales, N121.4 billion worth of the maturity was put up for sale by the apex bank but the bids jumped to 365.1 billion, indicating that it was oversubscribed by 200.7 per cent.
Investors have found this bill attractive because it offers a higher interest rate than the two other tenors available at the primary market; the 91-day bill and the 182-day bill.
After the exercise, the CBN allotted N280.9 billion worth of the 364-day instrument to market participants, higher than the amount it initially wanted to sell to them, but lower than what they bid for. The range of the bid rates for this maturity was between 5.95 per cent and 8.67 per cent.
Analysis of the 3-month bill indicated that the bank auctioned N3.1 billion to investors but subscriptions worth N4.8 billion were received, while N3.5 billion was allotted at 2.5 per cent, the same rate as the previous exercise. It was observed that the bid rates range was from 2.49 per cent to 10.00 per cent.
As for the 182-day bill, the CBN offered for sale N32.7 billion but received bids valued at N24.2 billion and allotted N22.9 billion at 3.5 per cent. The rate was flat but the range from investors was between 3.49 per cent and 12.00 per cent.
Business Post reports that the total value of the treasury bills brought to the market was N157.2 billion, while the worth of the subscriptions stood at N394.1 billion, with the amount sold at N307.3 billion.
