By Dipo Olowookere
Trading activities at the treasury bills market were relatively flat yesterday as investors await outcome of the Monetary Police Committee (MPC) meeting of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) today.
According to analysts at Zedcrest Research, at the market yesterday, there were mixed trading sentiments witnessed over the course of the day.
The short-tenured maturities (Oct-Dec) were the most actively traded, with yields closing slightly higher by 0.10 percent due to funding needs by some market players for the wholesale foreign exchange auction by the CBN.
At the close of business on Monday, the average T-bills yield slightly increased by 0.001 percent to close at 13.11 percent.
The market is expected to remain stable in the near term, due to the relatively buoyant level of liquidity in the system.
“We however note a slowdown in demand from clients as they anticipate a renewed supply of the long tenured bills (Aug/Sep – which offer the highest yield in the market) at the next CBN OMO auction expected Thursday,” Zedcrest Research said.
Meanwhile, Business Post reports that the average money market closed higher at 8.71 percent after the Open Buy Back (OBB) and Overnight rates 4.33 percent apiece to close at 8.33 percent and 9.08 percent respectively.
This came on the back of funding for a wholesale FX auction of about N75 billion by the central bank yesterday.
System liquidity which opened the day at N478 billion is consequently estimated to close at 400 billion positive.
The rates are expected to remain stable as there are no significant outflows expected on Tuesday (today).
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka