T-bill rates rise; gov’t raises P15B
Interest rates on short-term government securities increased across the board as lenders’ appetite for Treasury bills waned.
Still, the national government fully awarded its latest offering of T-bills and raised P15 billion as planned.
This was the third straight week with a full award for each of the P5-billion offering of 91-day, 182-day and 364-day T-bills.
In the June 5 bidding, the auction committee led by the Bureau of the Treasury said that the auction was 1.8 times oversubscribed with total bids reaching P27.7 billion.
In three previous weekly auctions, the T-bills offers were oversubscribed by at least three times, with investors making available as much as P60.7 billion in one session.
On Monday, the average rate on the benchmark 91-day T-bills increased by 4.4 basis points (bps) to 5.827 percent from 5.783 percent last week.
For the 182-day T-bills, the new average yield was 1.2 bps higher at 5.891 compared to the previous 5.879 percent.
Also, the average rate for the 364-day T-bills went up by 3.2 bps to 5.98 percent from 5.948 percent.
At the secondary market, the rate for the three-month debt paper was 6.1 bps lower at 5.766 percent.
Further, the rates for the six-month debt paper was 7.2 bps higher at 5.963 percent, and for the yearlong bill 4.9 bps lower at 5.931 percent.
According to the economic research team at the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), monetary authorities were still bent on fighting inflation even with a pause on rate hikes. Considering that, BPI thinks that short-term yields may stay elevated. INQ
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