T-bill rates crawling up
MANILA -The latest auction of treasury bills on Monday showed mixed results with the average yields on the benchmark debt paper crawling up.
Rates on the 91-day T-bills rose by 0.6 basis point (bp) to an average of 5.783 percent from last week’s 5.777 percent. Also, the average rate on the 364-day T-bills inched up by 0.3 bp to 5.948 percent from 5.945 percent.
On the other hand, the yield on the 182-day T-bills decreased by 1.9 bps to 5.879 percent.
The auction committee led by the Bureau of the Treasury fully awarded its offerings of P5 billion per tenor, raising a total of P15 billion as planned.
“The auction was 3.2 times oversubscribed with total bids reaching P48.7 billion,” the committee said in a statement.
Further, the resulting rates were all higher than those for corresponding deals at the secondary market.
Rates at the Bloomberg Valuation Service were pegged 8.3 bps lower at 5.79 percent for the three-month securities; 1.6 bps lower at 5.879 percent for the six-months; and 5.2 bps lower at 5.896 percent for the one-years.
Last week, National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said interest rates on government securities were expected to decline after Fitch Ratings revised to stable from negative its outlook on the Philippine government’s credit rating.
Fitch Ratings improves outlook on PH to stable from negative
“We see rates declining as a result of both Fitch outlook adjustment to stable and the Monetary Board’s pause on policy rates” that was announced on May 18, De Leon said.
Fitch Ratings said in a statement the revision of the outlook reflected their assessment that the Philippines’ economic policy framework remains sound.
ING Bank senior economist Nicholas Mapa said the stable outlook on the country’s investment-grade credit rating will be crucial for gross domestic product to sustain its pace of growth. INQ
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