Dull sentiment in secondary bond market continues

By Wealth Trust Securities

The dull sentiment witnessed in the secondary bond market over the last couple of days continued yesterday as well, with most market participants remaining on the sidelines. 

A limited amount of trades were witnessed consisting of the two 2023 maturities (i.e. 15.05.23 and 01.09.23) and the 01.08.24 maturity at levels of 10.41% to 10.48%, 10.60% and 10.47% to 10.55% respectively.

 The total secondary market Treasury bond/bill transacted volumes for 6 September 2017 was Rs. 0.85 billion.

 Given below are the closing, secondary market yields of the most frequently traded T – bills and bonds,

Meanwhile, in money markets, the Open Market Operations (OMO) Department of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka was seen draining out an amount of Rs. 12.47 billion on an overnight basis at a weighted average of 7.27% as the net surplus liquidity in the system stood at Rs. 24.79 billion. 

It further drained out an amount of Rs. 3.1 billion in total by way of two outright sales of Treasury bills at weighted average rates of 8.50% and 8.54% for 35 and 42 days respectively. The overnight call money and repo rates averaged 8.12% and 8.14% respectively.

Rupee slides further

In the Forex market, continued importer dollar demand saw the USD/LKR rate on the spot rate dipping further to close the day at Rs. 152.75/80 against its previous day’s closing levels of Rs. 152.60/70.

 The total USD/LKR traded volume for 4 August 2017 was $ 112.83 million. Given below are some forward USD/LKR rates that prevailed in the market. 

 1 Month  -   153.35/45

3 Months   -  155.15/25

6 Months  -  157.55/65