THE Bureau of the Treasury fully awarded P35 billion in new 10-year Treasury Bonds (T-Bonds) as investors shrugged off fears of multiple rate hikes from the US Federal Reserve.
Bids for the security amounted to P72.2 billion, making the auction more than twice oversubscribed.
The debt paper fetched a coupon rate of 4.875 percent, above the 3.92-percent average rate from the previous auction in July last year.
However, National Treasurer Rosalia V. De Leon said the rates ended up lower than the secondary benchmark-rate for the tenor, prompting them to make the full award.
De Leon also said the country was in a “completely different landscape” in the last auction.
“Oversubscription more than twice amount on offer and rates lower than secondary for 10-yr tenor. [Investors] defied fears of Fed multiple increases,” De Leon’s clipped message to reporters read.
The Treasurer attributed investor sentiment more to the assurance from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) monetary authorities would keep rates stable to help the country clamber out of an economic chasm.
“Thanks to [BSP] Gov [Benjamin Diokno] assuaging market he won’t hike until economy on solid recovery path. And they need to deploy liquidity. Inflation concerns have also eased,” De Leon’s message read.
The Treasury also decided to open the tap facility for an additional P5-billion offering.
In December last year, monthly inflation eased to its lowest for 2021 at 3.6 percent due to cheaper food and transport costs. For this month, the Treasury is set to borrow P200 billion from the local debt market.
For this year, the national government programmed to borrow P2.47 trillion, down by nearly a fifth from P3.07 trillion.