The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) on Monday increased the amount it awarded for the auctioned treasury bills amid strong demand for the short-term IOUs.
In a statement, the BTr said the auction was 4.1 times oversubscribed, with tenders reaching P90.6 billion.
This prompted the BTr to award a total of P30.8 billion, instead of the initial offer of P22 billion.
National Treasurer Sharon Almanza in a Viber message said the BTr increased the amount it awarded “given the very strong demand for all tenors.”
At least P9.8 billion each was raised via the three-month and six-month securities, while the one-year paper raised P11.2 billion. The BTr’s programmed amount for the 91-day and 182-day IOUs was P7 billion each, while P8 billion went to the 364-day treasury bills.
The 91-, 182- and 364-day securities fetched average rates of 5.178 percent, 5.548 percent and 5.773 percent, respectively.
These were all lower than the prevailing secondary market rates of 5.2702 percent for the three-month tenor, 5.5681 percent for the six-month tenor, and 5.7941 for the one-year tenor.
“The latest Treasury bill average auction yields again slightly corrected lower for the second straight week after the latest inflation unexpectedly eased to 2.1 percent, a pleasant surprise near the lower end of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) inflation target of two to four percent that could support future BSP rate cut of -0.25 as early as the next BSP rate-setting meeting on April 3, 2025,” Michael Ricafort, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chief economist, said.
Ricafort said the stronger peso and lower global crude oil prices recently led to the latest rollback in local pump prices and could support further improvement in the inflation data, which could help further justify future local rate cuts going forward.
