Year ends with bill and bond auction

Wednesday, 28 December 2022 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Wealth Trust Securities

The secondary bond market was at a standstill yesterday at the start of a fresh and short week, where there will be a Treasury bill as well as a Treasury bond auction.

The bill auction due today, will have on offer a total amount of Rs. 98 billion, consisting of Rs. 50 billion of the 91-day, Rs. 25 billion of the 182-day and Rs. 23 billion of the 364-day maturities, while Rs. 90 billion consisting of the 15.01.25 and the 15.05.26 maturities, will be offered at the bond auction which is scheduled to be held on Thursday 29 December.

At last week’s bill auction, the weighted average yields decreased across the board by 13, 03 and 02 basis points respectively to 32.67%, 32.23% and 29.30%. The total offered amount of Rs. 85.00 billion was accepted at the 1st phase of the auction while a further amount of Rs. 5.51 billion was raised through its phase II.

The total secondary market Treasury bond/bill transacted volume for 23 December was Rs. 7.42 billion.

In money markets, the net liquidity deficit stood at Rs. 243.08 billion with an amount of Rs. 320.48 billion being deposited with the Central Bank’s SDFR facility (Standard Deposit Facility Rate) at 14.50% whilst an amount of Rs. 563.56 billion was withdrawn through the SLFR facility (Standard Lending Facility Rate) at 15.50%. The weighted average rates on overnight Call money and REPO rates remained steady at 15.50% each.

Forex market

In the forex market, the middle rate of USD/LKR spot contracts was at Rs. 363.10 when compared against the previous day’s closing level of Rs. 363.1733. The total USD/LKR traded volume for 23 December was $ 19.30 million.

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