T-bill rates end mixed

MANILA, Philippines — Short-term government securities fetched mixed results yesterday as rates for the 91-day and 182-day Treasury bills declined, while rates for the 364-day debt papers climbed.

During yesterday’s auction, the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) fully awarded P4 billion worth of 91-day T-bills at an average rate of 3.149 percent, 10.5 basis points lower than the 3.254 percent recorded in its previous auction two weeks ago.

The securities were almost three times oversubscribed, with total tenders amounting to P11.35 billion.

A total of P5 billion worth of six-month debt notes were likewise fully awarded at an average rate of 3.429 percent, which is 4.2 basis points down from the previous auction’s level of 3.471 percent.

Total tenders reached P14.62 billion, almost three times larger than the P5 billion offer size.

On the other hand, the average rate for the 364-day T-bills rose slightly by 2.3 basis points to 3.659 percent from 3.636 percent in the previous auction.

Despite this, the auction committee decided to fully award the P6 billion out of the P14.281 billion total bids from investors.

“We still continue to see the rates declining, except of course, for the one year. And at the same time, the subscribed amount is close to three times our offer amount,” National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon told reporters after the auction.

According to De Leon, the decline in the rates for three-month and six-month securities stemmed from the market’s expectation of further slowdown in domestic inflation and monetary policy easing on the part of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

“This takes off from the pronouncements of the governor that there’s again possibility for a policy rate cut and also for the last quarter they’re mulling also the possibility of another RR (reserve requirement) cut, providing more liquidity also to the market,” De Leon said.