T-bills auction: Demand improves as government exceeds target by about 76%; interest rates soften

Demand for treasury bills improved as the government exceeded its treasury bills target by about 76.4% to GH¢5.06 billion.

This is coming despite some analysts’ prediction that investor interest will remain relatively soft at the next auction.

The Treasury, however, accepted GH¢4.40 billion of the total bids as against a target of GH¢2.86 billion.

According to auction results by the Bank of Ghana, the chunk of the bids came from the 91-day instrument.

A little over GH¢3.2 billion of the bids were tendered, representing 64.9% of the total bids.

The uptake was, however, GH¢3.0 billion.

The 182-day bill received bids of about GH¢1.3 billion. A little above GH¢1.2 billion was accepted.

For the 364-day bill, about GH¢468.9 million of the bids were tendered. A little above GH¢136.5 million of the bids were accepted.

Meanwhile, interest rates continued to soften on the yield curve.

This will help reduce the government’s cost of domestic debt.

The yield on the 91-day bill declined by 4.0 basis points to 4.60%.

That of the 182-day bill also went down to 6.27% from the previous week’6.31%.

Similarly, the yield on the 364-day bill dropped by 5.0 basis points to 9.75%.