T-bill rates drop further on policy easing hopes

THE GOVERNMENT fully awarded the Treasury bills (T-bills) it offered on Monday as rates continued to go down across the board on expectations that benchmark borrowing costs will ease further.

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The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) raised P25 billion as planned from the T-bills it auctioned off as the offering was nearly five times oversubscribed, with total bids reaching P117.84 billion. However, this was lower than the P154.254 billion in tenders recorded on Sept. 15.

The Auction Committee made a full award of its offer amid the strong demand and as all T-bill tenors fetched average rates that were all lower than those seen at last week’s auction and prevailing secondary market yields, the BTr said ina statement.

Broken down, the Treasury borrowed P8.5 billion as planned via the 90-day T-bills as total tenders for the tenor reached P35.805 billion. The three-month paper was quoted at anaverage rate of 4.883%, down by 6.7 basis points (bps) from the 4.95% recorded in the previous auction. Yields accepted were from 4.815% to 4.924%.