Bond market at a complete standstill

By Wealth Trust Securities 

The new trading week commenced on a dull note as activity in the secondary bond market was at a complete standstill yesterday with a majority of market participants opting to be on the sidelines.

Meanwhile, the National Consumer Price Index (NCPI) for the month of July increased to 6.8% on the basis of its point-to-point against its previous month 6.1%, while its annual average remained steady at 5.4%.

The total secondary market Treasury bond/bill transacted volume for 20 August was Rs. 0.17 billion.   

In money markets, the weighted average rates on overnight call money and repo remained mostly unchanged at 5.77% and 5.75% respectively as the overnight net liquidity surplus increased to Rs. 14.62 billion yesterday. An amount of Rs. 115.55 was deposited at Central Banks SDFR (Standard Deposit facility Rate) of 5% against an amount of Rs. 100.94 billion that had been withdrawn from Central Banks SLFR (Standard Lending facility Rate) of 6%.

USD/LKR   

In Forex markets, the overall market continued to remain inactive yesterday. The total USD/LKR traded volume for 20 August was $ 45.80 million.  

(References: Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Bloomberg E-Bond trading platform, Money broking companies)