The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) said it raised a total of P28 billion from the auction of treasury bills on Monday, offered initially at P22 billion.
The BTr said the auction was 3.1 times oversubscribed, with total bids reaching P67.2 billion.
The 91-, 182-, and 364-day T-bills fetched rates of 5.157 percent, 5.554 percent and 5.681 percent, respectively.
The oversubscription “prompted the auction committee to double the accepted non-competitive bids for the 182-day securities to P5.6 billion for the 364-day T-bills,” BTr said in a statement.
A private bank economist said, “the latest Treasury bill average auction yields mostly corrected slightly higher after declining for 3 straight weeks.”
“The investors could have again anticipated possible local policy rate cuts for the coming months by locking in yields before they go down further,” Michael Ricafort, RCBC chief economist, said in a Viber message on Monday.
Despite a pause during the last monetary policy stance meeting, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said early this month that they are still on the easing cycle and that a rate cut is “on the table” when the policymaking Monetary Board next meets on April 10th.
Citing economic uncertainty, especially over global trade policies, the Monetary Board decided at its February meeting to keep steady the BSP’s Target Reverse Repurchase (RRP) Rate at 5.75 percent. The interest rates on the overnight deposit and lending facilities were also kept at 5.25 percent and 6.25 percent, respectively.
Ricafort cited offsetting positive factors, such as the latest cut in banks’ reserve requirement ratio due to take effect on March 28, which he said “could infuse about P330 billion into the banking system” and the country’s exit from the FATF grey list.
“(These) Helped improve sentiment on the local economy and financial markets,” Ricafort said.
“T-bill auction yields are still mostly slightly lower versus the comparable short-term Philippine Bloomberg Valuation, which are among the lowest in five months,” Ricafort said.
