Activity remains dull ahead of weekly bill auction

By Wealth Trust Securities

The seasonal mood in secondary markets saw yields remain mostly unchanged for a second consecutive day as activity remained rather dull yesterday.

This sentiment was further supported with the postponement of the monetary policy announcement to 16 April. The yields on the two five-year maturities (i.e. 01.04.2018 and 15.08.2018) remained within the range of 11.37% to 11.42%, while a limited amount of activity was witnessed on the six-year maturity as it closed the day, down at 11.45/55 against its opening level of 11.55/65. Secondary market bills centering on the 364-day bill continued to change hands within the range of 11.25% to 11.30% ahead of the weekly Treasury bill auction due today. Rs. 1 billion, Rs. 2 billion and Rs. 6 billion are on offer on the 91-day, 182-day and 364-day maturities respectively. Weighted averages remained unchanged at last week’s auction.

Meanwhile in money markets, overnight call money and repo rates remained steady to average 9.44% and 8.58% respectively as liquidity remained high at Rs. 41.4 billion yesterday. An amount of Rs. 36.8 billion was mopped up from the system on an overnight basis at a weighted average of 8.35% by way of a repo auction conducted by the Open Market Operations (OMO) department of Central Bank.

Rupee remained steady

In Forex markets, the USD/LKR rate remained mostly unchanged to close the day at Rs. 125.48/125.52. The total USD/LKR traded volume for the previous day (08-04-13) stood at US$ 79.55 million.