Bond yields up marginally on profit taking

 By Wealth Trust Securities

The bond market saw a slight uptick in yields yesterday as investors took profits while the yield curve continued to flatten out from a steep inversion as seen for much of this year. 

As such, yields on the liquid 01.07.25, 15.05.26, 15.09.27, 01.05.28 and 15.05.30 maturities changed hands at the levels of 13.00 to 13.25, 13.00, 12.60 to 13.40, 12.75 to 12.80 and 12.25 to 12.55 respectively against its previous day’s closing levels of 12.75/13.50, 12.25/12.75, 12.25/12.75, 11.75/12.75, 11.75/12.00 and 11.50/12.00.

The total secondary market Treasury bond/bill transacted volume for 9 August was Rs. 18.18 billion.

In money markets, the DOD (Domestic Operations Department) of Central Bank injected liquidity by way of overnight auction for a total volume of Rs. 146 billion at the weighted average rate of 11.52% while an amount of Rs. 41.28 billion was withdrawn from Central Bank’s SLFR (Standard Lending Facility Rate) of 12.00%. The net liquidity deficit stood at Rs. 187.00 billion yesterday.

The weighted average rates on overnight call money and repo were registered at 11.73% and 11.90% respectively.

Forex market 

In the forex market, the USD/LKR on spot contracts edged up slightly to close the day at Rs. 319.75/320.50 against its previous day’s closing level of Rs. 319.00/320.00.

The total USD/LKR traded volume for 2 August was $ 89.35 million.

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