Secondary market bond yields remain steady ahead of weekly T.Bill auction
Tuesday, 25 February 2014 00:00
-
- {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Wealth Trust Securities
Secondary market bond yields remained steady across the yield curve, ahead of the weekly treasury bill auction to be held today the 25th and a treasury bond auction due on the 26th.
Average volumes changed hands consisting mainly of the liquid 2018 maturities (i.e. 01.04.2018 and 15.08.2018) at yields in the range of 8.72% to 8.75% and 8.80% to 8.83%. Furthermore a limited amount of activity was also witnessed of the two 2019’s (i.e. 15.01.2019 and 01.07.2019) and 01.05.2021 maturities at level of 8.90% to 8.98% and 9.75% to 9.80%, with the 364 day bill quoted within a range of 7.00% to 7.08%.
The T bill auction will have on offer Rs.0.5 billion for 91 days, Rs.3 billion for 182 days and Rs.8.5 billion for 364 days. This is in comparison to last week’s total offered amount of Rs. 10 billion and where the weighted averages declined by 02 basis points across the boards to 6.75%, 6.90% and 7.08%.
Meanwhile in money markets, overnight call money and repo rates remained steady to average 6.96% and 6.44% respectively as the Central bank refrained from conducting any auction under its Open Market Operations (OMO). Total surplus funds of Rs. 16.30 billion were deposited at the CBSL’s Standing Deposit Facility Rate (SDFR) at 6.50%. However in an effort to drain out liquidity on a more permanent basis an amount of Rs 5.00 Bn was mopped up from the system for 31 days by way of term repo auction at weighted averages of 6.72%.
Rupee dips further
In Forex markets, the rupee continued to dip marginally to break the psychological figure of Rs131.00 for the first time in three months to close the day at Rs.131.05/10 against its previous day’s closing of Rs.130.90/00 on continued importer demand. The total USD/LKR traded volume for the previous day (21-02-14) stood at US $ 50.60 million.
Some of the forward dollar rates that prevailed in the market were 1 Month - 131.63; 3 Months - 132.63 and 6 Months - 134.18.
