Treasury bill rates down; 91-day yield at 1.452%

The yield on the benchmark three-month treasury bills eased further by 4.3 basis points to an average 1.452 percent as rates fell across the board.

This compares with the prevailing 1.425-percent rate for done deals at the Philippine Exchange and Dealing Corp. trading floor.

The yield on the six-month bills fell 12.4 basis points to 1.671 percent while that for the one-year securities declined by 29.7 basis points to 2.125 percent.

However, the Bureau of Treasury raised only P6.95 billion instead of the planned P7.5 billion due to a partial award for the six-month paper.

Deputy Treasurer Eduardo S. Mendiola said in an interview that investors apparently considered an expectation of higher inflation in August, which “push(ed) them to scramble for short-term debt securities.”

“Considering that (all tenors were oversubscribed), the rates moved down,” Mendiola said. “In the case of the 181-day bills, we aligned it to the secondary market so the award was just partial.”

Had the Treasury awarded fully the P2.5 billion offered for the six-month security, the yield would have gone down by only 5 basis points to 1.745 percent.

In the secondary market, prevailing rates for the six-month bills were 7.9 basis points higher at 1.75 percent and for the yearlong bill, 30 basis points higher at 2.425 percent.