Bond market remains dull ahead of weekly bill auction

By Wealth Trust Securities

The secondary bond market remained dull yesterday, with limited trades witnessed only on the 15.01.33 maturity at levels of 13.00% to 13.03% against its previous day’s closing levels of 12.98/05.

Today’s bill auction will have on offer Rs. 77 billion, consisting of Rs. 37 billion on the 91 day, Rs. 15 billion on the 182 day and a further Rs. 25 billion on the 364 day maturities. At last week’s auction, the weighted average rate on the 91 day maturity decreased by 4 basis points to 8.59% while all bids received for the 182 day and 364 day maturities were rejected.

The total secondary market Treasury bond/bill transacted volume for 7 February 2022 was Rs. 0.81 billion.  

In money markets, the net liquidity deficit stood at Rs. 499.370 billion yesterday with an amount of Rs. 68.22 billion been deposited at Central Banks SDFR (Standard Deposit Facility Rate) of 5.50% against an amount of Rs. 640.48 billion withdrawn from Central Banks SLFR (Standard Deposit Facility Rate) of 6.50%. The Domestic Operations Department (DOD) of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka was seen draining out an amount of Rs. 72.9 billion by way of an overnight auction at a weighted average rate of 6.49%. The weighted average rates on overnight Call money and REPO were registered at 6.48% and 6.50% respectively.

Forex market 

The overall market remained inactive yesterday.

The total USD/LKR traded volume for 7 February 2022 was $ 90.25 million.  

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