Nigerian naira weakens 0.28% at parallel market as DMO re-opens bond offers Wednesday.

The exchange rates of the Nigerian naira to the American dollar weakened Tuesday by 0.28 percent to N364 in the parallel market, while it strengthened by 0.02 percent to N361.41 in the I&E FX window.

Total turnover in the I&E window improved significantly by 155.16 percent to $259.05 million, traded within the range of N359.00-N363.50/$.

At the inter-bank money market, overnight lending rates inched up 58 bps to 18.00 percent from 17.42 percent in the previous session in the absence of significant inflows to support market liquidity.

Proceedings were bullish in the NTB market as average yield dropped 6 bps to 12.93 percent. Buy sentiment was spread across the mid (-13 bps) and long (-21 bps) ends of the curve, with yields on the 114DTM (-152 bps) and 296DTM (-119 bps) bills moderating significantly. Conversely, yields expanded across the short (+17 bps) segment, driven by a selloff of the 9DTM (+107 bps) bill.

The bond market also traded on a bullish note as average yield moderated by 7 bps to 13.24 percent. Yields contracted across all ends of the curve – short (-15 bps), mid (-2 bps), and long (-3 bps) – driven by demand for the FEB-2020 (-25 bps), MAR-2027 (-4 bps), and JUL-2034 (-8 bps) bonds, respectively.

Meanwhile, the DMO plans to offer N70 billion – N20 billion of the APR-2023 (re-opening), N20 billion of the MAR-2025 (re-opening) and N30 billion of the FEB 2028 (re-opening) – in bonds to investors, at Wednesday’s (tomorrow) primary market auction.