THE Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) awarded all tenors in the auction on Monday of Treasury bills (T-bills) with a total of P15 billion, as rates for the government security were deemed “broadly steady.”
National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon told reporters the auction committee decided to fully award all tenors in its T-bills auction as bid rates for the security were already at a plateau, which was seen to be prompted by the recent reports on the country’s inflation and gross domestic product (GDP) rates last week.
“It’s a very healthy auction, we saw that rates were really flat, it has plateaued. The rates for both the 182-day and 364-day were very marginal at an increase of 1.5 basis points to 1.2 basis points over last week’s auction,” de Leon said. “So this just shows that for the market, they see that inflation has really already flattened; it has plateaued.”
The 91-day tenor bucket was awarded the full P4 billion on offer at an average annual rate of 5.172 percent, with tenders reaching P6.860 billion. This posted an increase of 9.50 basis points compared to the previous auction rate of 5.077 percent.
Bids for the 182-day tenor reached P10.278 billion, prompting the auction committee to award the full P5 billion on offer at an average annual rate of 6.245 percent. This showed a slight uptick of 1.20 basis points from the previous rate of 6.233 percent.
The 364-day tenor was also fully awarded with P6 billion, with an average annual rate of 6.521 percent, and tenders reaching a high of 11.503 billion. This posted a 1.50-basis-point growth compared to the previous auction rate of 6.506 percent.
“They see, because of expectations that inflation might already be trending downward going forward given the October print,” de Leon added. “And on the month on month, from 0.9 to 0.3 percentage points, so the month-on-month reduction is significant.”
Last week the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported the country’s inflation level for October this year remained steady at 6.7 percent coming from the same level in September this year.
The PSA also reported last week the country’s third-quarter GDP reaching 6.1 percent coming from an initial 6 percent GDP in the second quarter but later revised to 6.2 percent.