By Dipo Olowookere
The treasury bills market was traded on Tuesday with mixed sentiments, with some buying interests witnessed earlier in the day, on the short end, due to the relatively buoyant level of system liquidity, analysts at Zedcrest Research said.
Stating further, they said a change in sentiments was however witnessed later in the day, with market players taking profits and selling off slightly in anticipation of the PMA today and a possible OMO auction on Thursday.
According to the research firm’s analysts, as a result of the above, yields were higher by 0.08 percent on the day.
They said due to the buoyant level of liquidity in the system, and renewed appetite by locals at current yield levels, stop rates at the PMA today are expected to be much unchanged from their previous levels.
In addition, a slight uptick in yields in the secondary market is expected.
Meanwhile, at the close of business yesterday, the average money market rate was marginally down.
While the Open Buy Back (OBB) rate went down to 4.83 percent from 6 percent, the Overnight (OVN) rate declined to 5.58 percent from 7.17 percent.
The drop in the rates was mainly due to a significantly robust system liquidity level estimated at N470 billion from 550 billion opening yesterday, with the difference being the estimated debit for the wholesale SMIS by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
“We expect rates to remain stable today as there are no significant outflows anticipated,” Zedcrest Research disclosed.
