Naira stabilises as CBN repays N101.53bn TB

The naira on Thursday remained stable at the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment of the foreign exchange and parallel market as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) further improved the liquidity in the financial system through an Open Market Operation (OMO) repayment valued at N101.53 billion.

After trading on Thursday, the naira closed at N222/$ and N224/$ at the BDC segment of the foreign exchange and parallel market.

However, it weakened against the dollar by N80 or 0.41 percent at the interbank foreign exchange market following strong demand by end users.

After trading on Thursday, the local currency closed at N198.18k/$ as against N197.38k/$ traded the previous day, according to data from FMDQ.

In spite of the fund injection, average money market rates climbed marginally by 0.09 percent (8.17%), as the Open Buy-Back (OBB) (+0.50%) and overnight (OVN) (-0.33%) rates advanced and declined accordingly. NIBOR also inched up by 6pbs to settle at 14.26 percent, even as rates across all tenors trended southwards, save for the CALL rate, which appreciated by 0.66 percent according to a report by Meristem Securities Limited.

Market sentiment towards T-bills instruments skewed near the longer term of the yield curve, just as average yield across tenors pared by 0.17 percent (14.73%). The 9M (0.96%) and 12M (0.56%) tenors recorded the highest decline, while the 1M and 3M tenors accounted for the highest yield increase of 0.23 percent apiece.

Contrary to expectation given by the JP Morgan GBI-EM Index news, significant rally was witnessed across the Benchmark and Off-the-Run bonds. Unlike Wednesday’s outing, investment sentiment skewed away from the longer term bonds to the short and medium termed bonds, thereby settling the average yield across tenors at 15.46 percent (-0.18%).