9 September 2016 12:00 am
Economynext: Sri Lanka’s bill yields plunged at Wednesday’s auction with the 12-month yield falling 34 basis points to 10.39 percent, data from the state debt office showed.
The 6-month yield fell 23 basis points to 9.94 percent, and the 3-month yield fell 28 basis points to 8.75 percent.
The debt office offered to roll over Rs11 billion of bills and bought only exactly Rs11 billion, made up of Rs1.0 billion of 3-month, Rs2.0 billion of 6-month and Rs8.0 billion of 12-month bills.
In bond markets, yields have also fallen several basis points over the week, dealers said.
In money markets, a liquidity shortage has ended with the Central Bank buying dollars to create rupees and the market becoming excess from August 29.
The Central Bank, however, did not mop the liquidity by outright sales of Treasury bills and stopped collecting forex reserves from that day.
Unless liquidity is mopped up, banks will loan the liquidity again and imports will be generated, and the Central Bank will have to sell the reserves it collected to maintain the peg.
Excess liquidity, which is up as much at Rs20 billion on 31 August, has since fallen again.