Benchmark interest rates moved sideways as investors tend to be concerned about a potential hawkish policy stance by the US Federal Reserve.
At an auction of Treasury bills on Monday, April 18, the bellwether 91-day rate, which banks use in pricing their loans, dropped to 1.223 percent from 1.250 percent previously.
The Bureau of the Treasury sold the P5 billion worth of three-month debt papers on offer. Investors, however, were asking for P26.23 billion more of the government security or IOU.
Meanwhile, the yield for the 182-day T-bill went up to 1.568 percent from 1.555 percent last week.
Investors were willing to buy as much as P15.85 billion of the T-bills, but the government only accepted P5 billion worth of bids as planned.
The yield for the 364-day T-bill also inched up to 1.877 percent from 1.857 percent. Treasury accepted P5 billion worth of bids. Investors, however, were willing to buy more, as tenders reached P11.954 billion.
After the auction, National Treasurer Rosalia V. De Leon said the government saw a good demand for debt papers, supported by the P27 billion maturing debt which aided liquidity this week.
“Market biased was on the short end with anticipated aggressive Fed actions with combined policy rate hikes and balance sheet runoff as reflected in Fed minutes,” de Leon told reporters.