Treasury awards P21 billion in T-bills

MANILA, Philippines — The government upsized the award of short-dated securities in yesterday’s auction to P21 billion as strong demand pulled down rates across the board.

The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) raised the volume of Treasury bills awarded from the initial offer of P15 billion.

Yesterday’s auction was more than six times oversubscribed with total bids of P100.3 billion, prompting the auction committee to double the accepted non-competitive bids across all tenors.

The average rates for the 91-day, 182-day and 364-day T-bills settled at 1.118 percent, 1.372 percent and 1.577 percent, respectively, all lower than the previous auction.

National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon said the market was flush with cash because of maturities of retail Treasury bonds (RTB).

“Liquidity is looking for outlets as RTB maturity further bolstered ample funds onshore searching for yield,” she said.

The BTr is raising P215 billion from the bond market this month, up from P170 billion programmed in April and May and P160 billion in March.

The Treasury raised the volume of bonds with longer maturities in the tenor mix after seeing robust demand for the securities in the previous auctions.

Auctioned every Monday are P15 billion worth of short-term debt papers for a total of P75 billion for the whole month.

These weekly Treasury bill offers are composed of P5 billion each for those with tenors of 91 days, 182 days and P364 days.

Offered every Tuesday, meanwhile, are P140 billion worth of Treasury bonds in total at P35 billion each for tenors of 20 years, seven years, 10 years and five years.