Tariffs of the 91- and 182-day treasury bills inched up Monday. It caused investors awaited the monetary policy decision of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in the midst of the COVID-19 recession.
The Treasury Bureau sold all P20bn in short-dated T-bills. In addition, it provided another P5bn of the 364-day debt paper through its tap window facility.
The P5 billion average rate in benchmark 91-day treasury bills rose from 1,113 percent last week to 1,118 percent.
The Treasury awarded the P5 billion in 182-day had also had a higher average of 1.388 percent from the previous 1.386 percent.
The P10 billion annual rate in 364-day buckled the trend barely. And then, settled at 1.745 percent, down slightly from 1.746 percent.
The Treasury however acknowledged in a statement that the yields were “much lower than the benchmark levels of the secondary market.”
National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon said T-bill rates were “plateauing as the Monetary Board is seen to leave rates unchanged” during Thursday’s meeting.
But de Leon noted that the BSP “still has room to lower policy rates.”
Headline inflation averaged 2.5 percent as of end-July, within the government’s 2 to 4 percent target range.
“The 364-day T-bill rate dropped to an average rate of 1.76 percent in July and 1.79 percent in the first auction in August. This will ease the burden on businesses adversely affected by the ongoing pandemic,” Beltran said. Tenders across the three T-bill tenors totaled P63.3 billion, making the auction 3.2 times oversubscribed.
De Leon attributed the strong demand to maturing IOUs worth P118 billion which needed a reinvestment outlet for investors.
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