The central bank’s securities auction registered mixed results on Friday, July 14, as the market still prefers the new 56-day tenor over the shorter-dated bills.
The total volume offered was P160 billion, the same as last week. Bids totalled P145.4 billion, lower compared to the previous week’s P173.74 billion.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Deputy Governor Francisco G. Dakila Jr. said that with P145.4 billion tenders, the respective bid-to-cover ratios (BCR) were at 0.846x and 1.098x for the 28-day and 56-day BSP bills.
The 56-day BSP bills attracted P101.47 billion bids with a yield of 6.6554 percent. The bids were lower than offer of P120 billion.
The 28-day tenor, meantime, received P43.92 billion, more than the offer of P40 billion. The yield was at 6.6505 percent.
“The resulting weighted average interest rates (WAIR) for the awarded bids fell from the previous week. The WAIR for the 28-day BSP Bill marginally declined by 0.6532 basis point (bp) to 6.6554 percent whereas that for the 56-day BSP Bill fell by 1.3563 bps to 6.6505 percent,” said Dakila.
He added that the range of yields accepted for the 28-day tenor widened to 6.5500 percent to 6.7000 percent, while the range for the 56-day tenor narrowed slightly to 6.6000 percent to 6.6974 percent.
“The results of today’s auction reflected market participants’ preference for the longer tenor as they continued to tend to client requirements,” said Dakila.
The BSP first offered the 56-day tenor on June 30. It added another tenor to absorb an expected excess liquidity in the financial system after it removed a pandemic-related relief measure related to the reserve requirements of banks.
The securities facility is one of BSP’s primary tools to manage inflation by controlling the amount of liquidity in the financial system. It was first introduced in September 2020.