Naira strengthens slightly at official, parallel market windows

THE naira at the CBN official spot rate appreciated slightly by 0.02 per cent on Monday to N305.80 to the dollar from its previous day rate of N305.85/$.

Rates at the parallel market also appreciated slightly to N361.70/$ from its previous day rate of N361.80/$.

This is coming as the CBN maintained its intervention in the Wholesale, Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SME) and Invisibles segment of the market, with an estimated supply of $195million.

Rates at the Investors and Exporters FX window closed at N360.32/$ from N360.25/$ in the previous session.

Meanwhile, dealers from Zedcrest Capital said the Treasury bills market traded on a slightly dull note, with some sell on the short end of the curve (Dec maturities) which rose by about 88 basis points (bps) due to the tight liquidity in the market.

The tight liquidity according to the dealers is coming on the backdrop of the foreign exchange (FX) interventions and Open Market Operations (OMO) T-bill sales (N48 billion) by the CBN.

The CBN sold N200 million 87-day and N47.82 billion 199day OMO bills, with rates declining by another 5bps to 15.85 per cent and 17.60 per cent respectively.