Secondary bond market at a complete standstill

Tuesday, 17 January 2017 00:32 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Wealth Trust Securities

The secondary bond market was at a complete standstill yesterday as sentiment continued to be dull with most market participants on the sidelines. Two way quotes continued to be wide across the yield curve.

Given below are the closing, secondary market yields for the most frequently traded maturities.

In money markets, the OMO department (Open Market Operations) of the Central Bank was seen conducting three more auctions for outright sales of Treasury bills yesterday. However, the auction only drained out an amount of Rs. 2 billion valued today against its total offered amount of Rs. 30 billion at weighted averages of 8.59% for 45 days as no bids for the maturities of 52 and 56 days were received.

The overnight call money and repo rates remained mostly unchanged to average 8.35% and 8.49% respectively as net surplus liquidity increased to Rs. 99.80 billion yesterday. The OMO department of the Central Bank was seen mopping up a further amount of Rs. 67.56 billion on an overnight basis by way of a Repo auction at a weighted average rate of 7.48%.

Rupee remains steady

Meanwhile, in Forex markets, the USD/LKR rate on the two week and one month forward contracts remained mostly unchanged to close the day at Rs. 150.50/55 and Rs. 150.95/05 as markets were at equilibrium.

The total USD/LKR traded volume for 13 January 2017 was $ 96.80 million. Given below are some forward USD/LKR rates that prevailed in the market. 3 Months - 152.45/55 and 6 Months - 154.75/85