AS investors continue to be risk-averse, the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) took the opportunity to borrow more from the local debt market after seeing lower rates across the board.
The Treasury raised a total of P24 billion, higher than the initial P20 billion offering as it accepted more non-competitive bids, particularly for the 91-day and 182-day Treasury bills (T-bills).
The auction was oversubscribed by five times more than the P20 billion offering as tenders reached P103.8 billion.
With strong demand for government securities, the Treasury also decided to open the tap facility window for an additional P5 billion offering for 364-day T-bills.
Following the auction, National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon told reporters that “flight to safety continues.”
“Strong reception to T-bill auction at much lower rates reflecting liquid tone of [the] market aftermath of supportive actions of the BSP [Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas],” De Leon said.
The 91-day T-bills capped at an average rate of 2.090 percent, 17.9-basis points lower than the previous rate of 2.269 percent. Tenders reached P29.334 billion, nearly six times the initial P5 billion offering.
For the 182-day debt papers, the securities fetched an average rate of 2.193 percent, sliding 18.1 basis points from 2.374 percent average rate in the previous auction. Total bids for the security amounted to P33.7 billion, more than six times higher than the initial P5 billion offering.
Lastly, the 364-day T-bills’ average rate also dropped to P2.653 percent, 10.8 basis points below the previous average rate of 2.761 percent. A total of P40.771 billion tenders were recorded for the tenor, four times more than the P10 billion offering.
For this month, the Treasury programmed to borrow P170 billion from the local debt market.