Secondary market bond yields ease ahead of weekly Treasury bill auction

Wednesday, 5 June 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Wealth Trust Securities

Secondary market bond yields eased marginally yesterday as activity picked up ahead of today’s weekly Treasury bill auction.

At today’s auction a total amount of Rs 13 Bn is on offer; lower than last week’s total amount of Rs 15 Bn. At last week’s auction, the weighted average (WAvg) on the 91 day dipped by 2 basis points to 8.73%, while WAvg’s on the 182 day and 364 day bills remained unchanged at 9.90% and 10.86% respectively. Once again secondary market activity mainly surrounded the two liquid five year maturities (i.e.01.04.2018 and 15.08.2018) yesterday as it dipped to intraday lows of 11.08% and 11.14% respectively before closing the day at levels of 11.09/10 and 11.15/18. Furthermore activity on the longer leg of the curve was witnessed as well, with the eight year maturity changing hands within the range of 11.52% to 11.54%. Surplus liquidity in money market increased further to Rs. 21.26 billion yesterday, which intern helped overnight call money and repo rates remain steady to average 8.77% and 8.38% respectively. Central Bank continued to refrain from conducting any Open Market Operations (OMO).

Rupee closes the day marginally higher

In Forex markets, the USD/LKR rate closed the day marginally higher yesterday at Rs 126.47/49 against its opening levels of Rs 126.50/55. The total USD/LKR volume for the previous day (03rd June) stood at US $ 33.30 million. Given below are some forward dollar rates that prevailed in the market, 1 Month –127.28; 3 Months- 128.81 and 6 Months- 131.28