Secondary bond markets remain bullish ahead of weekly bill auction
Wednesday, 26 March 2014 00:57
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By Wealth Trust Securities
The positive momentum witnessed in secondary bond markets over the past few days, continued yesterday as well, as yields were seen dipping further ahead of the weekly Treasury bill auction due today. Activity mainly surrounded the two 2018 maturities (i.e. 01.04.2018 and 15.08.2018) the 01.07.2019 and the 01.05.2021 maturities, as it was seen hitting intraday lows of 8.85%, 8.95%, 9.24% and 10.05% respectively. Today’s auction will see an total amount of Rs.10 billion (Bn) on offer which will consist of Rs.0.5 Bn, Rs.1.0 Bn and Rs.8.5 Bn on the 91 day, 182 day and the 364 day maturities respectively. At last week’s auction, weighted averages declined for a twenty sixth consecutive week to 6.66%, 6.83% and 7.05% respectively.
Meanwhile in money markets, the total surplus of Rs. 3.66 billion was deposited at CBSL’s Standing Deposit Facility Rate (SDFR) of 6.50% as Central Bank refrained from conducting any auctions under its Open Market Operations (OMO) yesterday. Overnight call money and repo rates continued to remain steady to average 6.92% and 6.40% respectively.
Rupee dips marginally
In Forex markets, the USD/LKR rate lost ground marginally yesterday to close the day at Rs 130.70/130.74 against its previous day’s closing levels of Rs.130.64/68 on the back of importer led demand. The total USD/LKR traded volume for the previous day (24-03-14) stood at US $ 60.45 million. Some of the forward dollar rates that prevailed in the market were 1 Month - 131.34; 3 Months - 132.35 and 6 Months - 133.85
