Overnight Rate Drops to 10.17% as CBN Sells N100.84b T-Bills

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

At the close of business on Wednesday, November 1, 2017, the overnight rate depreciated to 10.17 percent from 19.25 percent.

Business Post reports also that the Open Buy Back (OBB) declined to 9.42 percent yesterday from 17.17 percent two days ago.

Yesterday, no OMO auction was conducted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), but the apex bank auctioned N100.84 billion worth of treasury bills at the primary market.

A breakdown of the exercise showed that the apex bank sold N6.10 billion worth of 91-day bills at 13.10 percent stop rate, while the 182-day bills were sold for N6.70 billion at a stop rate of 15.28 percent, and the 364-day bills for N88.04 billion at 15.60 percent stop rate.

From the auction, it was observed that investors went for high yielding bills across the curve.

This was due to inflows from the retail forex refunds by the CBN which eased funding pressures in the market and improved market liquidity to about N79 billion long.

The apex bank had offered to sell N23.05 billion of the 91-day bills, but only received N6.25 billion from traders.

The CBN had auctioned N23.43 billion worth of 182-day bills, but only received N7.79 billion worth of bids, while the N54.35 billion worth of 364-day bills had N138.21 billion offers from investors.