THE national government raised P15 billion in treasury bills (T-Bills) amid an increase in investor appetite for bills with short tenors, according to the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr).
National Treasurer Rosalia De Leon told reporters after the auction last Monday that the market “flocked to short tenors given rising [Covid-19] cases and [the] Fed’s [US Federal Reserve] imminent aggressive rate hikes.”
Based on Treasury’s data, the government raised P5 billion from the 91-day T-bills. The total bids received reached P23.7 billion.
The Treasurer admitted there was a “bias toward short term tenors.” The market was also expecting additional liquidity from the P25-billion redemption this week.”
Monday’s auction saw bids for the T-bills nearly 5-times oversubscribed as total submitted bids reached P73.6 billion.
The auction saw the securities fetching lower average rates at 0.969 percent for the 91-day T-bills, 1.121 percent for the 182-day papers and 1.468 percent for the 364-day notes.
“Full award with high bid to cover and lower rates offered,” De Leon said explaining investors’ mood was also swayed as “December inflation dropped to 3.6 percent.
In terms of the 182-day T-bills, the government also raised P5 billion while the total bids submitted reached P24.98 billion.
For the 364-day notes, the government raised P5 billion but received total bids of P24.9 billion.
The government was able to trim outstanding debt to P11.93 trillion (as of end-November last year). Nonetheless, that is still beyond the government’s expected level of P11.73 trillion for 2021.
Latest data released by the Treasury showed that the current debt stock dipped by P39.7 billion or 0.3 percent from P11.97 trillion as of end-October, mainly due to the net redemption of domestic securities and favorable foreign exchange rates.