Investors continued to ask for higher interest rates from the government, prompting the Bureau of the Treasury to reject offers for the three-month and one-year debt papers.
At an auction of Treasury bills on Tuesday, Sept. 27, offers for the bellwether 91-day rate, which banks use in pricing their loans, were rejected after investors sought 4.397 percent, well above the secondary rate of 2.776 percent.
Demand for the three-month notes was weak at P4.6 billion, below the government’s program of P5 billion.
Likewise, the government rejected all offers for one-year IOUs due to high rates.
Investors asked for a 4.88 percent return for the 364-day T-bills, also way above the 3.928 percent fetched in the secondary market.
The bureau received anemic demand for the one-year papers after tenders reached only P4.064 billion versus the P5 billion offer.
Meanwhile, the Treasury bureau made a partial borrowing for the 182 T-bills at 3.958 percent, also above the secondary market level 3.704 percent.
The government was support to sell P5 billion worth of six-months IOUs, but it opted to borrow only P3.35 billion as total tenders amounted to P9 billion.
“Interest rates on short end are very sensitive to aggressive actions of US Federal Reserve,” National Treasurer Rosalia V. De Leon told reporters after the auction.