T-bill, RTB rates to track secondary market levels

RATES of the Treasury bills (T-bills) on offer on Monday could end mostly lower on bets of further monetary easing by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), while the five-year retail Treasury bonds (RTBs) could fetch yields close to comparable secondary market levels at the rate-setting auction.

-  A.M.C. Sy

The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) will auction off P25 billion in T-bills on Monday, or P7 billion in 91-day securities, P8.5 billion in 182-day debt, and P9.5 billion in 364-day papers.

On Tuesday, the government will hold the rate-setting auction for its offering of five-year RTBs, from which it targets to raise at least P30 billion. The BTr cancelled its scheduled auction of P30 billion in five-year Treasury bonds (T-bonds) on Aug. 5 to give way to the RTB offer.

“The upcoming Treasury bill average auction yields could again slightly ease after the comparable short-term PHP BVAL (Bloomberg Valuation Service) yields were mostly slightly lower, particularly the six-month and one-year tenors,” Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. Chief Economist Michael L. Ricafort said in a Viber message.

“Upcoming local inflation data expected to be benign... could still support the dovish signals recently by local monetary authorities on possible 50-basis-point (bp) rate cuts for the rest of 2025, the earliest of which would be a possible 25-bp rate cut as early as the next rate-setting meeting on Aug. 28,” Mr. Ricafort said.