Secondary market bond yields decline marginally ahead of weekly bill auction

Wednesday, 11 December 2013 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Wealth Trust Securities The selling interest in secondary bond markets witnessed the previous day due to policy rates been held steady for a second consecutive month came to a halt yesterday as yields dipped marginally ahead of the weekly Treasury bill auction due today. Activity was mainly surrounding the liquid two 2018 maturities (i.e. 01.04.2018 and 15.08.2018) within the ranges of 10.60% - 10.66% and 10.63% - 10.70% respectively as those reflected marginal dips in comparison to their previous day’s closing levels. Furthermore, continued demand on secondary market bills saw the 364-day bill changing hands at levels of 9.20% to 9.30%. This is ahead of today’s weekly Treasury bill auction, where a total amount of Rs. 10 billion is on offer which will consist of Rs. 0.5 billion, Rs. 1 billion and Rs. 8.5 billion on the 91-day, 182-day and the 364-day maturities respectively. At last week’s auction, weighted averages on all three maturities declined for an 11th consecutive week to 7.97%, 8.65% and 9.50% respectively. Given below are the closing, se

condary market yields for the most frequently traded maturities; Meanwhile in money markets, surplus liquidity in money markets stood at Rs. 21.97 billion yesterday as the Open Market Operations (OMO) department of Central Bank was seen mopping up Rs. 5.26 billion on a three day basis at a weighted average of 7.30% while further amount of Rs. 16.71 billion was deposited at its widow rate of 6.50%. This in turn helped weighted averages on overnight call money and repo rates to remain steady at 7.75% and 7.04% respectively yesterday. Rupee remained steady The USD/LKR rate remained steady to close the day at Rs. 130.83/86 yesterday. The total USD/LKR traded volume for the previous day (09-12-13) stood at $ 63.72 million. Some of the forward dollar rates that prevailed in the market were 1-Month: Rs. 131.54; 3-Months: Rs. 132.87 and 6-Months: Rs. 134.82.