91-day T-bills up to 1.587%

MANILA, Philippines — Yields for government securities jumped for another week on investor concern that the US Fed will go all out with its rate hikes soon.

The Bureau of the Treasury yesterday made a partial award of just P5 billion of the P15 billion in Treasury bills on offer as rates went up again across the board.

Demand for T-bills amounted to P35.804 billion, oversubscribing the offer by 2.39 times and rising by more than 38 percent from last week’s P25.914 billion.

The Treasury awarded P5 billion in 91-day T-bills as against demand of P17.802 billion. Rates for the three-month tenor climbed by 5.1 basis points to 1.587 percent.

In contrast, the Treasury rejected all bids for the 182-day and 364-day T-bills. If bids were accepted, yields for the 182-day tenor would have jumped by 24.9 basis points to 1.856 percent, while that for the 364-day debt papers would have risen by 34.5 basis points to 2.137 percent.

Also, the six-month and full-year T-bills received bid totals worth P9.4 billion and P8.602 billion, respectively.

National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said investors were demanding yields above market quotation due to price surges caused by crude oil price spikes.

Further, investors fear that the US Fed may raise interest rates by another 50 basis points any time soon to tame inflationary pressures.

“The Treasury made a full award for 91-day T-bills, but full rejection for both 182- and 364-day T-bills. Market jitters continue with another round of oil price hikes and Fed’s aggressive tone including a 50-basis-point rate hike to tame inflation,” De Leon told reporters.

However, De Leon said the government does not worry that it would run out of resources to fund its programs and projects.

“Recent success in dollar market strongly positions the Treasury to meet its disbursements even with rejections in auctions if markets demand an arm and a leg,” De Leon said.

The Philippines last week borrowed $2.25 billion, or around P118 billion, through the issuance of five- and 10.5-year global bonds and the maiden offering of 25-year green bonds.