T-bills auction: Interest rates fall for first time in 37 weeks

Interest rates fell for the first time after 36 weeks, confirming some analysts’ assertion that yields on Treasury bills are expected to peak around 30% to 33.5%.

According to auction results from the Bank of Ghana, the government secured 29.03% oversubscription of the sale of short-term securities to the tune of about ¢4.006 billion.

For the first time in about nine months, interest rates went down across the yield curve. This is in anticipation that inflation would ease further.

The yield on the 91-day T-bill declined to 29.84% from the previous 29.96%.

That of the 182-day bill also took a nose dive to 31.87% from 32.14% the preceding week.

The 364-day bill also declined to 33.44% from 33.70%.

Analysts argued that nominal yields would ease once inflation declines sufficiently. Meanwhile, demand for short-term securities surged despite the government increasing its target for the auction.

Overall, the government accepted ¢3.90 billion of bids, higher than the target of ¢3.105 billion.

The majority of the bids came from the 91-day bill. This was to the tune of ¢3.24 billion, representing about 80.9% of the total bids.

For the 182-day bill, about ¢410.99 million were tendered. The government, however, accepted ¢409.66 million.

About ¢353.90 million was, however, tendered for the one-year bill, but the government accepted ¢348.33 million.