T-bills fetch mixed results
Treasury bills (T-bills) maturing in 91 and 182 days fetched lower rates yesterday due to strong demand for shorter-dated government securities, according to the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr).
However, the market asked for considerably higher rates for one-year debt papers, prompting the auction committee to reject all bids for the securities.
Rates for the 91-day T-bills stood at an average of 3.439 percent, 4.6 basis points lower than the 3.485 percent recorded during the previous auction.
The P5 billion offering was more than three times oversubscribed, with total tenders amounting to P15.145 billion.
Likewise, rates for the 182day debt notes declined by 6.1 basis points to 3.958 percent from 4.019 percent last week.
Total tenders reached P10.62 billion, more than twice the P4 billion issue size.
On the other hand, the average rate asked by investors for 364-day T-bills reached 4.338 percent, 35.2 basis points higher than last week’s level of 3.986 percent.
As a result, the BTr rejected all bids for the one-year securities, which reached P4.58 billion, lower than the P6 billion issue volume.
National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ decision to reduce the volume for the term deposit facility to P60 billion has pushed investors to shift to government securities.
Because of the ample liquidity, De Leon said the rates for the 91-day and 182-day T-bills went down.
De Leon said the results of the auction also reflected the market’s preference for the shorter end of the curve.
“It shows the preference on the short end. Of course, banks are waiting for the results of the Monetary Board (MB) meeting on the policy rate on Thursday and the release of the GDP (gross domestic product),” the national treasurer said.
“Also the preference continues to be because of uncertainties about inflation. They say inflationary expectations are building up. Everything, hopefully, will have a calming effect (based) on what would really be the action of the MB on Thursday,” she said.