Fresh trading week starts on a dull note

Tuesday, 27 June 2023 01:13 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Wealth Trust Securities

The fresh trading week in the secondary bond market commenced on a dull note yesterday with limited activity witnessed on the maturities of 15.05.26, 15.09.27 and 01.07.32 at levels of 26.00%, 23.70% and 20.25% respectively. In secondary bills, December 2023, May 2024 and June 2024 maturities changed hands at levels of 19.50% to 20.00, 19.00% to 20.01% and 17.40% to 17.50% respectively.

Today’s weekly Treasury bill auction will have in total an amount of Rs. 130 billion on offer, an increase of Rs. 20 billion over last week. This will consist of Rs. 60 billion on the 91-day maturity and Rs. 35 billion each on the 182-day and 364-day maturities.

At last week’s auction, weighted average rates decreased across the board by 16, 112 and 109 basis points to 23.00%, 19.49% and 16.99% on the three maturities respectively.

The full offered amount of Rs. 110.00 billion was accepted at the 1st phase of the auction while a further amount of Rs. 27.50 billion was raised at its phase II.

The total secondary market Treasury bond/bill transacted volume for 23 June 2023 was Rs. 18.23 billion.

In money markets, the DOD (Domestic Operations Department) of Central Bank injected liquidity by way of overnight and 2-day reverse repo auctions for a total volume of Rs. 111.10 billion at weighted average rates of 13.67% and 13.84% respectively while an amount of Rs. 128.59 billion was withdrawn from Central Banks SLFR (Standard Lending Facility Rate) of 14.00%. The weighted average rates on overnight call money and repo were registered at 13.97% and 14.00% respectively.

Forex Market

In the Forex market, the USD/LKR rate on spot contracts was seen closing the day at Rs. 308.50/314.00 yesterday against its previous day’s closing level of Rs. 307.00/309.00 subsequent to trading within the range of Rs. 307.50 to Rs. 309.00.

The total USD/LKR traded volume for 23 June was $ 6.9 million.

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