MANILA – The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) on Tuesday fully awarded bids for Treasury bills (T-bills).
The 91-, 182-, and 364-day T-bills fetched average rates of 5.573 percent, 5.993 percent and 6.297 percent, respectively, all lower than the prevailing secondary market rates.
The auction was 3.3 times oversubscribed with total bids amounting to PHP49.1 billion.
The BTr raised the full program of PHP15 billion for the auction.
In a comment, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation chief economist Michael Ricafort said the T-bills average auction yields mostly eased week-on-week as the comparable PHP BVAL (Philippine Bloomberg Valuation Service) yields also corrected lower week-on-week.
"Most of the T-bill auction yields are similar to or slightly lower than the comparable PHP BVAL yields, except for the 91-day tenor, which is much lower at 5.573 percent versus the comparable 3-month PHP BVAL yield at 5.75 percent as of August 25, 2023," he said.
Ricafort said this is after recent signals of a possible cut in local policy rates in the first quarter of 2024 and the possibility of a further cut in banks' reserve requirement ratio later this year.
He added T-bill auction yields also eased after the US Treasury bond yields corrected lower recently to near two-week lows, with the benchmark 10-year tenor at 4.19 percent from a 16-year high of 4.36 percent posted on Aug. 22. (PNA)
