INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
The national government raised P12.8 billion from its latest Treasury bill auction, making a partial award of its debt paper ahead of next week’s expected policy rate hike.
The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) on Monday awarded in full its 364-day offering while making a partial award of its 91- and 182-day peso-denominated short-term fixed income securities.
The latest auction saw rates capped at 5.717 percent, 4.664 percent and 5.437 percent, respectively.
“The auction was 1.4 times oversubscribed, attracting P21.6 billion in total tenders. With its decision, the committee raised P12.8 billion of the P15.0 billion total offering,” the Treasury said in a statement.
In a message sent to reporters, National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said that the partial award for the 91- and 182- day, as well as the full award for 364-day securities, were made to ensure that rates are within secondary levels.
Rate hike
During last week’s auction, the BTr raised only P9.7 billion out of the planned P15 billion at rates and demand that were slightly lower compared to yesterday’s sale.
Sought for comment on the outlook for next Monday’s auction, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chief economist Michael Ricafort told the Inquirer that rates and demand “could still be slightly higher ahead of the possible Fed and local policy rate hikes.”
Ricafort is among the analysts who are expecting the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to announce a policy rate hike of .25 percentage points (ppt) on Wednesday next week, lower than the earlier expectation of a 50 basis points after February inflation eased to 8.6 percent.
Earlier, Monetary Board chair and BSP Governor Felipe Medalla had broached the possibility of a 0.5-ppt hike to 6.5 percent if inflation in February read out higher than 9 percent.
But the inflation rate last month slowed down after rising for five months straight, settling at 8.6 percent owing mainly to slower price increases in the transport commodity group. INQ