Treasury raises P12.37B from Monday’s T-bill auction

The Bureau of the Treasury raised P12.37 billion from the partial award of the T-bills it offered Monday as it tempered the rising yield on the one-year debt paper.

The Treasury awarded all P5 billion in 91-day IOUs at an average rate of 3.323 percent, down from 3.437 percent last week, as tenders reached P8.92 billion.

It also accepted bids worth P4 billion for the 182-day debt paper it auctioned at 3.714 percent, down from 3.879 percent during the previous auction, with total bids amounting P7.231 billion.

As for the 363-day treasury bills, only P3.369 billion were awarded out of the P4-billion offering even as investors tendered P7.839 billion.

The Treasury capped the annual rate at 4.324 percent, higher than last week’s yield of 4.297 percent.

“There is basically no need for investors to ask for higher rates, so we cut it at that level. We are just tempering the increase in the rates right now,” National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon told reporters after the auction, citing that the headline inflation rate in May of 4.6 percent fell below the market consensus of 4.9 percent.

The Treasury also tempered the rate for the one-year T-bills as Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas had indicated that inflation was already tapering and might have already reached its peak, de Leon added.

In all, tenders for the three tenors totaled P23.99 billion or 1.6 times bigger than the P15-billion total offering during the auction.