91-day T-bill rate rises to 2.148%; one-year at 2.751%
The yield on the benchmark 91-day treasury bills rose 20.1 basis points to an average 2.148 percent as the government tried to temper investors’ push for higher rates.
The Bureau of the Treasury raised only P7.6 billion instead of the planned P9 billion due to partial awards for the two shorter tenors.
Buyers made available a total of P14.8 billion or more than one-and-a-half times the total offer.
Monday’s average for the benchmark bill was 4.8 basis points higher than the corresponding 2.1 percent set for done deals in the secondary market.
Interest rates on both the 182- and 364-day bills rose 4.2 basis points to an average 2.45 percent and 2.751 percent, respectively.
The resulting averages were 15 basis points higher than the 2.3 percent for the six-month paper and 0.1 basis point over the 2.75 percent for the year-long securities traded at the privately run Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp.
National Treasurer Roberto B. Tan said in an interview that the results again showed the government’s efforts to align primary market rates with those in the secondary market.
“This is our direction now that the preference is for longer-term maturities,” Tan said. “We have a continuing adjustment of short-term market rates.”
The Treasury received “meaningful tenders, all of which were more than the offers,” he added. “We looked at these bids as serious, except for those that were higher and which we find unreasonable [and thus we rejected].”
Had the Treasury awarded fully its offered volumes, yield on the 91-day bills would have gone up 29 basis points to 2.237 percent. The rate on the 182-day bills would have also gained 16.7 basis points to 2.575 percent.
Tenders for the 91-day bill reached P4.65 billion, or less than twice the P2.5 billion on offer.
Bids for the 182-day bills totaled P3.98 billion while those for the 394-day paper reached P6.17 billion, both less than twice the P3 billion and P3.5 billion that the government auctioned.—Ronnel W. Domingo
