T-bill rates rise across the board

The Bureau of the Treasury sold all P15 billion in treasury bills it offered Monday even as rates rose across the board.

The Treasury awarded P4 billion in the benchmark 91-day debt paper at an average rate of 5.077 percent, up from 4.979 percent last week.

It also accepted P5 billion in 182-day IOUs at 6.233 percent, up from 6.159 percent during the previous auction.

As for the 364-day securities, P6 billion were sold at an annual rate of 6.506 percent, up from 6.41 percent previously.

Tenders across the three tenors totaled P22.9 billion, making the auction oversubscribed.

National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon told reporters after the auction that while the bid rates continued to rise, yield movements had “already moderated.”

De Leon noted that rates moved up by about 10 basis points compared with jumps of 20-30 bps in previous auctions.

“I guess there is still cautiousness coming from inflation,” she said, noting that economists expected the rate of increase in prices of basic commodities last month could be just “a little bit lower” than the more than nine-year high of 6.7 percent posted in September.

The government will release the October inflation figure today.

Also, the market was expecting another rate increase by the US Federal Reserve Board in December, De Leon added.