Naira Remains Steady Against Dollar On The FX Market

The Naira on Tuesday maintained its stability across segments of the foreign exchange market amid the unrest and attack on businesses across the nation.

At the Bureau De Change (BDC) segment, the Naira remained stable against the dollar to close at N461/$1 on Tuesday.

An allocation worth over $50 million was made available to 5,000 BDCs on Tuesday by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The Apex bank sells $10,000 to BDCs twice a week and has sold over $500 million to over 5,000 operators across the country.

At the money market, the CBN will on Wednesday conduct a Primary Market Auction (PMA) to roll over NT-bills maturities worth N134.37 billion (N20.0 billion lower than the expected maturity of N154.37 billion) across 91-day (N29.84 billion), 182-day (N10.62 billion), and 364-day (N93.91 billion) tenors, a report by FSDH stated.

The Nigerian treasury bills secondary market closed on a negative note on Tuesday with average yield across the curve increasing by 1 basis point to close at 0.53 percent from 0.52 percent on the previous day. The average yield across long-term maturities widened by 2 bps, due to maximum selling pressure witnessed in the NTB 16-Sep-21 (+8 bps) and NTB 26-Aug-21 (+8 bps) maturity bills. However, average yields across short-term and medium-term maturities remained unchanged at 0.38 percent and 0.32 percent, respectively.

The Overnight (O/N) rate declined by 4.50 percent to close at 1.75 percent from 6.25 percent on the previous day, and the Open Buy Back (OBB) rate also declined by 5.00 percent to close at 1.00 percent as against the last close of 6.00 percent. The money market rates are likely to remain subdued as inflows from Open Market Operation (OMO) bills maturities worth N336.09 billion and FGN bond coupon payments of N160.32 billion are expected to flow into the system, barring any significant liquidity mop-up activity by the CBN.