Bond yields decrease marginally ahead of weekly Treasury bill auction

By Wealth Trust Securities

The secondary bond market yields were seen decreasing marginally yesterday as selling interest slowed down ahead of today’s Treasury bill auction. The 01.05.25 maturity hit an intraday low of 11.10% against its previous day’s closing levels of 11.20/25 while the 01.08.26 traded at 11.25% on the back of reduced activity.

At today’s bill auction, Rs. 48.5 billion will be on offer, consisting of Rs. 13.5 billion on the 91 day, Rs. 20 billion on the 182 day and Rs. 15 billion on the 364 day maturities. At last week’s auction, the weighted average rate on the 91 day bill increased by 47 basis points to 7.71% whiles the 182 day bill increased by 07 basis points to 8.10%. Nevertheless, the weighted average on the 364 day bill decreased by 04 basis points to 8.02%.

The total secondary market Treasury bond/bill transacted volumes for 27 December was Rs. 3.56 billion.   

In money markets, the net liquidity deficit was seen increasing marginally to Rs. 356.31 billion yesterday as an amount of Rs. 451.08 billion was withdrawn from Central Banks Standard Lending Facility Rate (SLFR) of 6.00% against its previous days Rs. 440.85 billion. 

An amount of Rs. 94.78 billion was deposited at Central Banks Standard Deposit Facility Rate (SDFR) of 5.00% against its previous days of Rs. 87.24 billion. The weighted average rates on overnight call money and repo averaged 5.94% and 5.99% respectively.

USD/LKR   

In the Forex market, the overall market remained inactive yesterday.

The total USD/LKR traded volume for 27 December was $ 21.25 million.   

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