Bond yields seesaw during the day

Tuesday, 29 January 2019 02:14 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Wealth Trust Securities

The secondary market bond yields seesawed yesterday, increasing during morning hours of trading and dipping towards the latter part of the day to close the day broadly steady.

Selling interest saw yields on the 15.12.23 and 01.06.26 maturities increasing to 11.50% and 11.65% respectively against its previous day’s closing levels of 11.32/38 and 11.55/65. However renewed buying interest at these levels, mainly from foreign market participants saw yields decreasing once again to hit intraday lows of 11.30% and 11.60% respectively.

Furthermore, maturities consisting of 15.12.21, 15.07.23, 15.03.25 and 01.09.28 were seen changing hands at levels of 11.00% to 11.05%, 11.35%, 11.48% to 11.50% and 11.65% respectively as well. In the secondary bill market, the latest 364 day bill was seen changing hands at 10.75%.

In the money market, the overnight call money and repo rates remained mostly unchanged to average 9% as net liquidity shortfall in the system stood at Rs.135.25 billion yesterday. The OMO Department of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka injected an amount of Rs. 40 billion at a weighted average of 9.00%, by way of an overnight reverse repo auction.

Rupee remains mostly unchanged

In the Forex market, the USD/LKR rate on the spot rate remained mostly unchanged yesterday to close the day at Rs. 181.55/65 on the back of an equilibrium market.

The total USD/LKR traded volume for 25 January was $ 67.75 million.

Some of the forward USD/LKR rates that prevailed in the market were one month – 182.50/70; three months – 184.35/55; and six months – 187.30/60.