PH T-bill rates end mixed in Monday auction

Deputy Treasurer Erwin Sta. Ana told journalists after the auction that demand for the longer tenor paper was low probably because of the holiday this week (National Day of Valor on Tuesday, April 9) and next week namely on Maundy Thursday (April 18), Good Friday (April 19) and Black Saturday (April 20). (File Photo: @TreasuryPh/Twitter)

MANILA — The rate of the 91-day Treasury bills (T-bill) declined Monday, contrary to the rise of the two longer tenor debt papers, resulting in the partial award for the latter two tenors.

Average rate of the bellwether tenor went down to 5.612 percent from 5.635 percent during the auction last April 1.

The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) offered this paper for PHP4 billion and banks submitted a total of PHP9.601 billion. The auction committee made a full award.

Rate of the 182-day T-bill rose to 5.982 percent from 5.958 percent in the previous auction.

Banks submitted a total of PHP5.34 billion worth of tenders, higher than the PHP5 billion offer but the auction committee awarded PHP2.76 billion.

Relatively, rate of the 364-day paper rose to 6.052 percent from 5.961 percent last week.

BTr offered it for PHP6 billion, and it ended up undersubscribed after banks submitted only PHP5.915 billion. The auction committee awarded PHP4.315 billion.

Deputy Treasurer Erwin Sta. Ana told journalists after the auction that demand for the longer tenor paper was low probably because of the holiday this week (National Day of Valor on Tuesday, April 9) and next week namely on Maundy Thursday (April 18), Good Friday (April 19) and Black Saturday (April 20).

“There’s muted trading in the past days because of the short working week this week and next so banks also would need certain liquidity to service off client requirements so it could also somehow explain that,” he said.

Sta. Ana also said that it “looks like It could be that the participants are weighing in some of the possible policy movements in the next quarters” referring to the expected cuts in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) key policy rates.

The BSP’s policy-making Monetary Board (MB) raised the central bank’s key rates by a total of 175 basis points due to the elevated inflation rate last year.

Since inflation continued to decelerate, however, analysts have been projecting cuts in the BSP’s rates beginning in the first quarter this year.