The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) said it has fully awarded the programmed offer for treasury bills at Monday’s auction amid healthy demand for the short-term securities.
In a statement, the BTr said the auction attracted nearly thrice the total offer, or exactly P73.9 billion in total tenders.
The BTr raised the full program of P25 billion via the treasury bills offering.
The 91-, 182-, and 364-day securities had average rates of 5.546 percent, 5.675 percent, and 5.691 percent, respectively.
These were higher than the comparable Bloomberg Valuation Service (BVAL) rates of 5.413 percent for the three-month tenor, 5.631 percent for the six-month tenor, and 5.684 percent for the one-year tenor.
The auction results showed that the 91-day IOUs saw tenders slightly higher than the P8 billion program, at P13.67 billion, while demand for the remaining two tenors was much higher than the awarded amount for the 182-day and 364-day securities.
The tenders for the 182-day paper reached P25.863 billion, versus the P8 billion program, and P34.38 billion for the one-year securities, with the government awarding P9 billion as planned.
John Paolo Rivera, a senior research fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, said investor preference for the 182- and 364-day securities reflected a search for better returns amid expectations that interest rates would stay higher for longer-term securities.
“Weaker demand for the 91-day IOUs may indicate that investors were avoiding reinvestment risk too soon in an uncertain rate environment,” Rivera said.
“The higher yields across all tenors also point to upward pressure from inflation concerns and the ongoing 10-year treasury note offering, which may be drawing attention toward longer-duration securities and influencing short-end pricing due to liquidity allocation,” he added.
Michael Ricafort, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chief economist, said the latest treasury bill average auction yields were mostly higher for the fourth week amid the ongoing 10-year treasury notes offering until April 24.
“That could siphon off some excess peso liquidity from the financial system,” Ricafort said, adding that another reason to factor in is the US inflation resulting from US President Donald Trump’s higher US import tariffs.
