15 January 2016, Sweetcrude, Houston — Local and international financial market products and services update.
NIGERIA: Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari ordered an investigation into how 219 schoolgirls were kidnapped in the northeastern town of Chibok in April 2014 by Boko Haram militants, an incident that sparked an international social media campaign.
National Security Adviser Babagana Munguno will name the members of the panel, Garba Shehu, a presidential spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement on Thursday. Earlier, Buhari met some parents of the girls, most of who are still missing, in Abuja, the capital.
FIXED INCOME: Bond yields opened wider but turned south even though equities were in negative territory. It was a calmer session yesterday but overall, backdrop is still cautious.
T-Bills space pretty quiet as traders anticipated OMO auction announcement. It was widely expected as N250bn OMO maturity hit the system yesterday.
COMMODITIES: For all the talk of Saudi Arabia’s oil company becoming the first trillion-dollar business if it goes public, some see the chatter as a sign of oil’s weakness. The Saudis, they say, know it’s time to start hedging their bet on fossil fuels.
While the Saudi Arabian Oil Co. sits on a preposterously large reserve of 260 billion barrels of oil, the kingdom’s discussion of a share sale amid a global collapse in crude prices suggests another motive to those who preach about the financial risks of climate change: The Saudis may want to capitalize on an asset that’s only going to lose value if the world gets serious about global warming.
CHINA: The offshore Yuan headed for the biggest weekly gain since October as China’s central bank limited the currency’s supply and forced a narrowing of its discount to the mainland rate.
The monetary authority repeatedly bought the currency in Hong Kong this week, sending interbank borrowing costs to an all-time high. Yuan positions at the People’s Bank of China dropped the most on record in December, suggesting increased intervention to support the Yuan as well as rising capital outflows. The nation’s foreign-exchange regulator was said to have verbally instructed some onshore banks to stop Yuan leaving the mainland and reduce offshore liquidity.
U.S: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it agreed to settle a U.S. probe into its handling of mortgage-backed securities for about $5.1 billion, cutting fourth-quarter profit by about $1.5 billion and closing out a year of record legal and litigation costs.
The proposed deal, which the bank announced in a statement Thursday, would be the latest multibillion-dollar settlement resulting from the government’s push to hold Wall Street firms to account for creating and selling subprime mortgage bonds that helped spur the 2008 financial crisis.
New York-based Goldman Sachs will pay a $2.39 billion civil penalty, make $875 million in cash payments and provide $1.8 billion in consumer relief under an agreement in principle with a U.S. task force.
Macro Economic Indicators
Inflation rate (Y-o-Y) for November 2015 9.37%
Monetary Policy Rate current 11.00%
FX Reserves (Bn $) as at January 12, 2016 28.708
Money Market Highlights
NIBOR (%)
O/N 1.4583
30 Day 7.8657
90 Day 9.0270
180 Day 10.7099
LIBOR (%)
USD 1 Month 0.4255
USD 2 Months 0.5125
USD 3 Months 0.6220
USD 6 Months 0.8597
Benchmark Yields
Tenor Maturity Yield (%)
91d 14-Apr-16 4.23
182d 14-Jul-16 7.27
364d 05-Jan-17 8.00
2y 31-Aug-17 10.88
3y 30-May-18 11.45
5y 13-Feb-20 12.69
Indicative Currency Exchange Rates
Bid Offer
USDNGN 197.00 199.50
EURUSD 1.0781 1.0984
GBPUSD 1.4294 1.4496
USDJPY 117.78 117.71
USDCHF 0.99955 1.0096
GBPEUR 1.3126 1.3330
USDZAR 16.4785 16.6819