The central bank has offered P170.0 billion worth of 28-day bills, higher than last week’s P150.0-billion offering, data from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed.
In a statement, BSP Deputy Governor Francisco Dakila Jr. said that “total tenders received amounted to P172.41 billion, which is equivalent to 1.01x the offered volume. The weighted average interest rate for the BSP bill continued to increase by 13.1090 basis points [bps] to 3.6439 percent.”
Similarly, the yields accepted shifted higher and widened slightly to a range of 3.5000 percent to 3.7500 percent.
“The results of the BSP bill auction continue to reflect the pass-through of the recent policy rate increase on short-term rates,” Dakila added.
Moreover, market participants may also look forward to the expected Retail Treasury Bond issuance later this month.
“In view of this, the BSP’s monetary operations will remain guided by its assessment of the latest liquidity conditions and market developments,” the deputy governor said.
For his part, chief economist Michael Ricafort of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. told Daily Tribune that “the 28-day BSP securities auction yield again higher [up for the 14th week in 15 weeks], by 0.1310 to 3.6439 percent; against the previous week’s to 3.5129 percent; after inflation posted a new high in nearly four years at 6.4 percent as well as recent signals of possible further local policy rate hikes of 0.25 to 0.50 basis points [bps] on August 18, 2022.”
“However, these are offset by the sharp decline in global crude oil prices to new six-month lows [erasing all the increase since the Russia-Ukraine war started in February], and the benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield hovered among 3.5-month lows, now at 2.68 percent [down from the 11-year high of 3.50 percent posted on June 14, 2022],” the economist.
Moreover, chief economist Michael Enriquez of Sunlife Investment Management and Trust Co said that “the BSP just matches the volume with their short-term liquidity needs.”