26 May 2017, Sweetcrude, Houston — The local and international financial market products and services update.
NIGERIA: Nigerian senators passed a bill to reform the country’s oil and industry almost a decade after it was first proposed to lawmakers, Senate President Bukola Saraki said. This is a bill that has been delayed for many years,” Saraki said during Thursday’s proceedings in the capital, Abuja. Its provisions “will ensure transparency and accountability and create an enabling environment for the petroleum sector that will be necessary to stimulate growth in this sector.”
FIXED INCOME: It was a relatively quiet trading session yesterday; there was neither a lot of price action nor trades in both the T-bill and bond market. Average T-bill and bond yields moved marginally by 3 basis points and 1 basis point respectively. The persistent money market tightness eased a bit because of the N131bn OMO bill maturity, but CBN issued more OMO bills to mop up this liquidity. CBN however, only successfully sold 14bn of the two maturities at unchanged stop rates. Overnight rate subsequently dropped to 16% because of the maturity.
FX: Indicative levels in the I&E window were down on the day with the opening/closing at their lowest level since the beginning of the month. This may reflect a slight change in sentiment as a result of a slowdown in FX appetite above $/N 400 level. CBN fills FX demand within the I&E window on a daily basis, range seen is $/N 370 – 395.
COMMODITIES: Oil prices edged up on Friday but markets remained on the back foot after tumbling in the previous session when OPEC and allied producers extended output cuts but disappointed investors betting on longer or larger curbs. At Thursday’s meeting in Vienna, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and some non-OPEC producers agreed to extend a pledge to cut around 1.8 million barrels per day (b/d) until the end of the first quarter of 2018. The initial agreement would have expired in June this year. Gaining back some of those losses, Brent crude futures LCOc1 were at $51.83 per barrel at 0708 GMT, up 0.37 cents, or 0.7 percent, from their last close.
U.S.A.: The current level of U.S. prices is noticeably lower than what it would be if the Federal Reserve had delivered on its 2-percent inflation target, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said, calling the trend “worrisome.” In slides prepared for delivery in Tokyo on Friday, the U.S. central banker said U.S. prices are now 4.6 percent below the price level path established from 1995 to 2012 when inflation was growing near the Fed’s target of 2 percent each year. “This is not as severe as the 1990s Japanese experience, but it is worrisome,” said Bullard, who does not vote on U.S. monetary policy this year. Too-low inflation has kept the Fed from raising rates more than three times since the Great Recession, but since late last year, most Fed policymakers have seen faster rate increases ahead, citing improvements in the labour market.
E.U.: The UK housing market appears to be ‘moving sideways’ mortgage lenders have said, as latest figures show a drop in borrowing. The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has reported a sizeable fall in demand for loans during April. Mortgages worth £18.4bn were advanced during the month, an 11% drop on the figure for March, it said. However, monthly mortgage lending figures tend to be volatile, and activity often drops in the spring. Allowing for such a seasonal factor, the CML said the amount borrowed last month was higher than the average over the past year and was 4% higher than in April 2016.
Macro Economic Indicators
Inflation rate (Y-o-Y) for April 2017 17.24%
Monetary Policy Rate current 14.00%
FX Reserves (Bn $) as at May 22, 2017, 30.577
Money Market Highlights
NIBOR (%)
O/N 21.3750
30 Day 21.0038
90 Day 22.5331
180 Day 24.6856
LIBOR (%)
USD 1 Month 1.03272
USD 2 Months 1.11056
USD 3 Months 1.19761
USD 6 Months 1.41739
Benchmark Yields
Tenor Maturity Yield (%)
91d 17-Aug-17 19.86
182d 16-Nov-17 21.78
364d 03-May-18 22.33
2y 29-Jun-19 16.47
3y 13-Feb-20 16.39
5y 27-Jan-22 16.19
Indicative Currency Exchange Rates
Bid Offer
USDNGN 314.50 315.00
EURUSD 1.1117 1.1319
GBPUSD 1.2760 1.2962
USDJPY 111.00 111.03
USDCHF 0.96555 0.9757
GBPEUR 1.1362 1.1566
USDZAR 12.8459 13.0493
EURNGN 352.41 353.77
GBPNGN 404.12 405.52