T-Bills Yields Fall at Secondary Market on Buy Pressure

By Dipo Olowookere

The average yields of treasury bills at the secondary market depreciated on Wednesday as traders focused on the sale of the debt instrument at the primary market.

Business Post reports that at the close of transactions yesterday, the yields tumbled by 0.66 percent to settle at 12.64 percent following buying pressure witnessed during the session.

It was observed that yields fell across the tenors tracked at the midweek trading session, with the six-month bill recording the highest decline, 1.14 percent, to finish at 12.08 percent against 13.22 percent it ended the previous day.

Yield on the one-month instrument depreciated by 0.95 percent to close at 11.50 percent in contrast to the previous 12.45 percent, the three-month maturity yield declined by 0.42 percent to 12.30 percent from 12.72 percent, while yield on the 12-month tenor went down by 0.11 percent to 14.69 percent from 14.80 percent.

At Wednesday PMA, stop rates of treasury bills, as earlier projected, was further lowered by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) amid increased participation rate.

The apex bank allotted the N125 billion worth of the government debt instrument to investors in the usual three different tenors.

Business Post reported that N4.38 billion worth of the 91-day bill was sold at 7.80 percent (9.50 percent in the previous exercise), N12.92 billion worth of the 182-day bill at 9.00 percent (10.45 percent) and N107.94 billion worth of the 364-day bill at 10.00 percent (11.50 percent).

Today, the CBN is expected to sell its bills via Open Market Operations (OMO) to help soak liquidity in the financial system with the OMO maturities of N406 billion hitting the system today.

Meanwhile, the average money market rates increased on Wednesday, though within the single-digit region, by 3.11 percent to settle at 8.57 percent.

This came on the back of the sustained high level of liquidity in the system, leaving the Open Buy Back (OBB) rate rising by 3 percent and the Overnight (OVN) rate growing by 3.21 percent.

At the close of business, the OBB rate rose to 8.14 percent from 5.14 percent, while the OVN rate appreciated to 9.00 percent from 5.79 percent.