Secondary bond market yields remain steady

• Money market liquidity turns negative once again

By Wealth Trust Securities

The secondary bond market yields remained broadly steady yesterday with the maturities of 01.07.19, 01.03.21 and 15.03.23 changing hands within a range of 9.60% to 9.67%, 9.90% to 9.94% and 10.35% to 10.37% respectively. 

In the secondary bill market, May 2019 bills traded at levels of 9.52% to 9.55%. 

Meanwhile, inflation for May saw its point to point increase for the first time in seven months to 4.0% against its previous month of 3.8% while its annualised average decreased to 5.70% against 5.90%

The total secondary market Treasury bond transacted volume for 30 May 2018 was Rs. 17.95 billion.

Given below are the closing, secondary market yields of the most frequently traded T – bills and bonds.

 In money markets, the OMO Department of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka was seen conducting an overnight Reverse Repo auction yesterday as the net liquidity position in the system was seen turning negative to record a net shortfall of Rs. 14.74 billion. The auction injected an amount of Rs. 12 billion at a weighted average rate of 8.08%. The overnight call money and repo rates averaged 7.93% and 7.92% respectively.

Rupee losses further

 In the Forex market, the USD/LKR rate on the spot contract depreciated further yesterday to close the day at Rs. 158.30/50 against its previous day’s closing levels of Rs. 158.15/30 on the back of continued importer dollar demand.

The total USD/LKR traded volume for 30 May 2018 was $ 52.97 million.