Sales of hryvnia govt bonds at auctions fall to UAH 216 mln

The main results of the primary auctions for the placement of hryvnia government domestic loan bonds on Tuesday ahead of the expected increase in the NBU key policy rate on April 15 was a further drop in sales of hryvnia securities to UAH 216 million from UAH 1.09 billion a week ago and 4.5 billion UAH two weeks earlier.

According to a posting of the Ministry of Finance on its website, the cut-off rate for six-month bonds fell from 8.68% three weeks ago to 8.5%, and the average rate – from 8.59% to 8.07%, while the rates for 12-month and 20-month securities remained the same – 10.75% and 11.1%, respectively.

This time, the Ministry of Finance for the first time failed to place all the six-month bonds put up for sale: with the traditional restriction of supply at UAH 0.5 billion, their sales amounted to UAH 138.6 million. Sales volume of 12-month securities after falling nine times last week to UAH 285 million decreased by another four times to UAH 71.6 million, and for 20-month bonds fell to UAH 5.9 million from UAH 179.3 million a week ago.

All 13 bids submitted for these auctions were satisfied, while the Ministry of Finance refused other planned placements of hryvnia government bonds that day, despite the forthcoming repayment of UAH 11.7 billion tomorrow.

In general, the average rate at these auctions fell to 9.04% from 9.44% a week ago, while the average term decreased from 10 to eight months.

In addition, the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday placed 22-month bonds pegged to the U.S. dollars for $49.2 million at 3.9%, whereas two weeks ago at the same rate the ministry managed to raise $106.8 million for 24-month bonds. At the same time, the number of applications has more than doubled, to fifty.