Yields down as bids flood debt market

T-bill rates further dipped on Monday, allowing the Bureau of the Treasury to raise P20 billion from short-dated debt paper.

The Treasury sold all P5 billion in the benchmark 91-day securities it offered at an average rate of 1.079 percent, which was down from 1.086 percent last week.

It also awarded P5 billion in 182-day treasury bills at 1.543 percent, down from 1.597 percent previously.

The P10 billion in 364-day IOUs were sold at an annual rate of 1.791 percent, down from 1.793 percent.

Across the three tenors, tenders totaled P81.83 billion, making the auction more than four times oversubscribed.

National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon attributed the full award to hefty bids submission coupled with rates that were aligned with secondary market levels.

The strong demand and lower yields “demonstrated sustained liquidity onshore,” De Leon said.

The Treasury thus opened its tap facility window to raise another P10 billion, offering P5 billion each of the six-month and one-year bills to the 11 market makers among the government securities eligible dealers (GSEDs).

Monday’s auction was the last for the month of October.

De Leon said the domestic borrowings program for November would be released in a memo­randum to GSEDs this week.

While De Leon had said that the Philippines would no longer issue yuan-denominated panda and yen-denominated samurai bonds after the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas advanced a fresh P540 billion under its repo agreement with the Treasury, she said “we continuously scan good opportunities for financing” from the offshore commercial market.

“We prepare and get ready to strike,” De Leon said. INQ