The rates of Treasury bills (T-bills) mostly moved sideways on Monday partly on the deceleration of the inflation rate last October.
The average rate of the 91-day T-bill rose to 1.143 percent while that of the 182-day moved to 1.401 percent and the 364-day to 1.616 percent.
These were at 1.13 percent, 1.395 percent and 1.613 percent for the three-month, six-month and one-year papers during the auction last November 3.
The Bureau of the Treasury offered all the tenors for PHP5 billion each and the auction committee made a full award across-the-board.
Tenders for the 91-day T-bill amounted to PHP14.53 billion while it reached PHP15.26 billion for the 182-day paper and PHP12.725 billion for the 364-day tenor.
“Following (the) deceleration in inflation and no market tantrum to Fed announcement of taper, (we) do not see significant rise in rates,” National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon told journalists in a Viber message.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has reported that the inflation rate slowed down to 4.6 percent last October from month-ago’s 4.8 percent primarily due to deceleration of the food inflation index.
However, the average inflation in the first 10 months this year stood at 4.5 percent, above the government’s 2 percent to 4-percent target.
Monetary authorities project inflation to slow down to within-target level by December.
The Federal Reserve, after the policy meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), last week kept its key rates steady but announced the start of cuts in its USD120-billion monthly bond-buying program starting late this month.
Source: Philippines News Agency