Mammoth bond auction receives full subscription

• Secondary bond market activity increases post-auction

By Wealth Trust Securities

The Treasury bond auctions conducted yesterday saw its total offered amount of Rs. 200 billion being successfully taken up. A further amount of 20% or Rs. 16 billion will be on offer on the 01.07.28 maturity, through its direct issuance window, until close of business today. (i.e., 4.00 p.m. on 31.08.23). Given below are the details of the auction.

The secondary bond market became active following the auction outcome as the auctioned maturity of 01.07.28 was seen changing hands at levels of 14.70% to 14.85%. In addition, the other liquid maturities of 15.05.26 and 01.07.32 saw limited trades at the levels of 14.70% to 14.75% and 13.57% to 13.60% respectively as well.

In secondary bills, September, November 2023 and February 2024 maturities changed hands at levels of 15.50% to 16.50%, 18.50% to 20.00% and 15.90% to 16.00% respectively. 

The total secondary market Treasury bond/bill transacted volume for 25 August 2023 was Rs. 18.25 billion.

In money markets, the weighted average rates on overnight call money and Repo stood at 11.46% and 12.00% respectively while the net liquidity deficit stood at Rs. 150.48 billion yesterday.

The DOD (Domestic Operations Department) of Central Bank injected liquidity by way of an overnight and 14-day reverse repo auctions for 70.00 billion and 46.30 billion at weighted average rates of 11.66% and 13.49% respectively while an amount of Rs. 83.18 billion was withdrawn from Central Banks SLFR (Standard Lending Facility Rate) of 12.00% while an amount of Rs. 2.70 billion was deposited at Central Banks SDFR (Standard Deposit Facility Rate) of 11.00%. 

Forex Market 

In the Forex market, the USD/LKR rate on spot contracts were traded within the range of Rs. 324.00 to Rs. 324.05 yesterday before closing the day at Rs. 324.00/324.25 against its previous days closing level of Rs. 324.00/324.25.

 The total USD/LKR traded volume for 25 August was $ 92.42 million. 

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