T-bill rates ease across all tenors, tracking decline in US bond yield  

MANILA  -Yields on short-term borrowings decreased across the board as the national government raised P15 billion as planned, fully awarding its offers of treasury bills (T-bills).

Average rate on the benchmark 91-day T-bills decreased again, this time by 2.1 basis points (bps) to 5.552 percent from 5.573 percent in the previous weekly auction.

Also, average yield on the 182-day T-bills went down by 2.7 bps to 5.966 percent from 5.993 percent.

Further, average rate on the 364-day T-bills eased by 3.7 bps to 6.198 percent from 6.297 percent.

“The auction was 3.2 times oversubscribed, attracting P47.6 billion in total tenders,” the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) said in a statement.

The BTr added that the resulting average yields were again all lower than prevailing secondary market rates.

At the Bloomberg Valuation Service, the yield on three-month bill was 15.6 bps higher at 5.708 percent.

The yield on the six-month bill was 2.2 bps higher at 5.988 percent, while the average rate for the 12-month bill was 6.6 bps higher at 6.263 percent.

Michael Ricafort, chief economist at Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., said the T-bills auction yields eased again after the United States Treasury bond yields also corrected lower for the second straight week.

Ricafort said that, in particular, the benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield was near three-week lows at 4.18 percent.

The yields decreased “ahead of the latest local inflation data on Sept. 5, as inflation could still mathematically ease for the coming months due to higher base effects and still on track to go within the [Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’] inflation target of 2 to 4 percent by November to December 2023,” he said.

“Thus, expectations of a pause in Fed (U.S. Federal Reserve) rates for the rest of the year would support the hawkish pause signaled recently by the local monetary officials and would help maintain comfortable interest rate differentials as seen recently,” he added. INQ