T-bill yields decline; benchmark rate at 2.084%

Interest rates on treasury bills fell across the board with available funds reaching about three times as much as the government’s offers.

As a result, the yield on the bellwether 91-day bills dropped by 1.9 basis points to average at 2.084 percent. This was 78.56 basis points lower than the prevailing corresponding rate in the secondary market.

Rates on the 182-day bills eased by 3.5 basis points to an average 2.421 percent while those for the 364-day bills fell by 2.5 basis points to an average 2.85 percent.

Compared to rates at Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. (PDEx), the results were lower by 38.06 basis points for the six-month bills but 84.11 basis points higher for the year-long paper.

In an interview, National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon described the auction as “very healthy,” with all the tenor buckets oversubscribed by about three times.

De Leon said the auction committee saw reduced offers for the 91-day and 182-day bills while there was a slight uptick for the 364-day bills.

“The appetite continues on the short end of the curve,” she said. “And maybe [buyers] also took the cue from what the governor (Bangko Sentral Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr.) said about domestic conditions playing a bigger factor than the emerging developments in the external environments.”

Yesterday, the Bureau of the Treasury raised P15 billion as planned. Investors tendered a total of P52.96 billion or more than three times the total offered volume. For the benchmark bill alone, tenders reached P21.68 billion or more than thrice the P6-billion offer.

Lenders made available P18.9 billion for the 182-day bill and P12.38 billion for the 364-day paper—also more than three times the respective offers of P5 billion and P4 billion.