Secondary bond market remains steady

By Wealth Trust Securities 

In the secondary bond market, yields of the liquid maturities of 15.12.21, 01.09.23, 01.08.2024 and 01.08.26 were seen decreasing during the morning hours of trading to intraday lows of 11.43%, 11.60%, 11.61% and 11.65% respectively. 

However, selling interest at these levels curtailed any further downward movement, with yields increasing marginally to close the day broadly steady when compared with the previous trading day’s closing levels. 

Furthermore, maturities consisting of 01.04.18, 2019’s (i.e. 15.01.19, 01.07.19 and 15.09.19) and 15.05.23 were trades at levels of 10.57%, 11.00% to 11.20% and 11.62%. In the secondary bill market, the 182 day bill was quoted at levels of 10.30/35.

The total secondary market Treasury bond transacted volume for 24 May 2017 was Rs. 7.3 billion. In money markets, the overnight call money and repo rates remained mostly unchanged to average 8.75% and 8.78%, as the Open Market Operations (OMO) Department of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka drained out an amount of Rs. 22 billion on an overnight basis at a weighted average of 7.26% by way of a repo auction. The net surplus liquidity in the system stood at Rs. 20.04 billion.

 Rupee closes steady  

 In the Forex market, the USD/LKR rate on the active spot next contracts were seen closing the day mostly unchanged at Rs. 152.90/95, subsequent to hitting a low of Rs. 153.00.

The total USD/LKR traded volume for 24 May 2017 was $ 57.65 million.

 Some of the forward USD/LKR rates that prevailed in the market were one month - 153.90/00; three months - 155.95/05 and six months - 158.85/95.