Treasury awards P25B in bonds

Screengrab from https://www.treasury.gov.ph/

MANILA, Philippines–The Bureau of the Treasury on Tuesday made a full award of the re-issued three-year treasury bonds worth P25 billion.

The long-term bonds were sold at 2.510 percent, 24.1 basis points lower than the 2.751 percent rate in the previous auction for the same instrument.

The bonds were oversubscribed with total tender hitting P53.53 billion.

National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon said after the auction that the lower rate came on the back of expectations that the Monetary Board would keep policy rates unchanged during its meeting on Thursday.

“In the last auction, expectations were rates would go up. This time, the market consensus is that policy rates will be put on hold by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas,” she said.

De Leon said policy rates might be kept as inflation had already slowed to 4.4 percent in September.

Last month, key policy rates were jacked up by 25 basis points due to inflation risks.

Tuesday’s auction was the second conducted by the BTr this quarter.

Early this month, the BTr also made a full award of the P20-billion worth of treasury bills auctioned, as investor appetite for short-term debt paper remained unaffected by a potential interest rate hike in the United States.