Secondary bond market activity dries up as yields remain mostly unchanged
Tuesday, 8 April 2014 00:01
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By Wealth Trust Securities
Activity in secondary bond markets dried up yesterday as yields were seen holding steady amidst thin volumes changing hands yesterday.
The yields on the liquid two 2018 maturities (i.e. 1 April 2018 and 15 August 2018) were at levels of 8.75/79 and 8.85/90 while the 1 July 2019 closed the day at 9.10/12. However, the shorter end of the yield curve witnessed some demand as the one-and-a-half-year maturity of 1 November 2015 was seen changing hands within the range of 7.52% to 7.55% yesterday against its last week closing of 7.55/58. In secondary bill markets, durations centering the 364 day bill continued to be quoted within the range of 7.00/07 and the 182 day bill within the range of 6.85% to 6.90%.
Meanwhile, in money markets, overnight call money and repo rates remained steady to average 6.98% and 6.57% respectively as liquidity remained high at Rs. 23.26 billion yesterday. An amount of Rs. 6.31 b was mopped up from the system on a three day basis at a weighted average of 6.54% by way of a Repo auction conducted by the Open Market Operations (OMO) department of the Central Bank while am amount of Rs. 16.95 billion was deposited at CBSL’s Standing Deposit Facility Rate (SDFR) of 6.50%.
Rupee dips marginally
The rupee closed the day marginally lower at Rs. 130.68/71 in comparison to its Friday’s closing levels of Rs. 130.60/62 on the back of importer demand. The total USD/LKR traded volume for the previous day (4 April 2014) stood at $ 82.65 million.
Some of the forward dollar rates that prevailed in the market were: one month – 131.27; three months – 132.37; and six months – 133.97.
