Treasury to auction P 170B in bills, bonds

The Bureau of the Treasury will ramp up domestic borrowings in April by offering more bills and bonds to take advantage of easing rates and a financial system that remains awash in cash.

In a memorandum to all government securities eligible dealers (GSEDs) Monday, National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said P170 billion worth of IOUs—P100 billion in short-dated bills and P70 billion in bonds—would be auctioned next month.

In the upcoming four Mondays of April, the Treasury will offer P25 billion each in bills—P5 billion in the benchmark 91-day, P8 billion in 182-day and P12 billion in 364-day tenors. The weekly volume will be bigger than the current P20-billion total offering for the short end of the curve.

The Treasury will also sell P35 billion each in bonds—five-year debt paper on April 6 and seven-year on April 20. During the past months, only P30 billion in bonds were offered to investors during each auction.

It will help that treasury bill bid rates declined on Monday, reversing rising yields during the preceding weeks, allowing the government to raise P24 billion, higher than the P20-billion offering.

The Treasury awarded P7 billion each in the three- and six-month IOUs, exceeding the P5-billion offer per maturity as it accepted double the non-competitive bids.

The average rates for the 91- and 182-day debt paper eased to 1.269 percent and 1.609 percent, respectively, from 1.336 percent and 1.718 percent last week.

The annual rate for the fully awarded P10 billion in one-year treasury bills also declined to 1.926 percent from 1.997 percent previously. INQ