Expected N116.9bn maturities to support liquidity level

THERE expectations that a total of N116.9 billion across the 91-day, 182-day and 364-day instruments which will be maturing this week will support liquidity level since only N58.4 billion is scheduled to be rolled over.

In the following week, “we anticipate a largely bullish performance in the Treasury Bills Market sequel to the reduction in the amount to be rolled over in line with the planned reduction and substitution of expensive domestic short term debt with cheaper long term foreign debt by the Federal Government,” one dealer said.

On Thursday, April 12, 2018, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) auctioned some treasury bills via the Open Market Operations (OMO). The apex bank offered bills worth N500 billion to investors during the exercise and sold the same amount of the instrument despite receiving subscriptions worth N965.26 billion from them. It was observed that investors were more attracted to the longer tenor bill than the shorter tenor instrument offered yesterday.

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From the N100 billion worth of 112-day bill offered to traders, the CBN raised a meagre N1.29 billion at 12.20 per cent.

However, the apex bank received N963.97 billion worth of subscriptions from investors for the N400 billion worth of the 245-day bill offered. Eventually, the apex bank sold N498.71 billion of the instrument to market players at 13.90 per cent.

According to analysts at Zedcrest Research, the treasury bills market was traded with mixed sentiments as investors took profit on some short tenured bills to fund their bids at the OMO auction.