By Dipo Olowookere
The stop rate of 364-day treasury bills was increased by the Central Bank of Nigeria on Wednesday by 0.34 per cent at the primary market auction (PMA).
According to details of the exercise obtained by Business Post, the one-year T-bills were sold to investors by the apex bank at 4.79 per cent compared with 4.45 per cent of the preceding exercise.
It was observed that subscribers sustained a strong appetite for the tenor as they staked N233.3 billion on the N116.3 billion worth of the debt instrument offered for sale yesterday.
The 12-month maturity has always attracted the attention of treasury bill investors. The central bank allotted N199.6 billion at the end of the auction and raised the rate ostensibly to maintain the hunger for it.
However, subscribers of the 91-day bill were not lucky yesterday as the apex bank slashed the stop rate by 0.01 per cent, selling it at 1.74 per cent in contrast to the previous 1.75 per cent.
The bill was not too attractive to investors who only staked N2.67 billion on the N2.69 billion worth offered for sale. The range of the bid rates was between 1.74 per cent and 4.25 per cent and the bank sold N2.22 billion.
As for the 182-day instrument, the CBN retained the stop rate at 3.00 per cent despite receiving more bids than what it took to the market.
It auctioned N2.1 billion to investors during the session but subscriptions valued at N13.6 billion were received from traders, while N8.2 billion was eventually allotted.
Adedapo Adesanya 
Modupe Gbadeyanka