Bond yields increase further ahead of weekly T-bill auction

By Wealth Trust Securities 

The secondary bond market yields increased further yesterday ahead of today’s weekly Treasury bills auction. Activity was witnessed on the 15.05.26, 01.05.27 and 15.09.27 maturities at levels of 30.00%, 28.50%, 28.15% to 28.50% respectively against its previous day’s closing levels of 29.25/50, 28.20/40 and 28.10/30 respectively.

Today’s weekly Treasury bill auction will have in total an amount of Rs. 140 billion on offer, a reduction of Rs. 20 billion over last week. This will consist of Rs. 80 billion on the 91-day maturity, Rs. 30 billion each on the 182-day and 364-day maturities.

At last week’s auction, weighted average rates increased across the board by 08, 15 and 14 basis points to 25.82%, 25.42% and 23.14% on the three maturities respectively. An amount of Rs. 145.20 billion was accepted at the 1st phase of the auction against its offered amount of Rs. 160 billion while a further amount of Rs. 54.80 billion was raised at its phase II.

The total secondary market Treasury bond/bill transacted volume for 8 May was Rs. 34.72 billion.

In money markets, the net liquidity stood at a surplus of Rs. 3.34 billion yesterday as an amount of Rs. 129.81 billion was deposited at Central Banks SDFR (Standard Deposit Facility Rate) of 15.50% against an amount of Rs. 126.47 billion being withdrawn from Central Banks SLFR (Standard Lending Facility Rate) of 16.50%. The weighted average rates on overnight call money and REPO stood at 16.50% each.

Forex Market 

In the Forex market, the USD/LKR rate on spot contracts were traded within the range of Rs. 318.00 to Rs. 318.20 yesterday before closing the day at Rs. 317.90/318.10 against its previous day’s closing level of Rs. 317.90/318.50.

The total USD/LKR traded volume for 8 May was $ 81.95 million.  

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