With a market liquidity of K277million into Thursday 16 August, the central bank in Africa’s second largest copper producer sold K687million in treasury bill in the seventeenth short term debt sale of 2019. Sixty two percent in bids totaling K906million of the K950million on offer were absorbed with a 63% skew towards the 1yr tenor whose yield edged 75bps higher to 27.5%.
The second most preferred tenor was the 9 months tenor whose appetite totaled K137million of which K73million was allocated at cost at a yield of 19%, 300bps wider than previous auction.
“The decent outcome was necessitated by Monday’s maturities in excess of K788million which most players committed to reinvest at higher yields,” Dean Onyambu a Interest rate trader said in a telephone interview.
Zambia’s rate decision meeting is set for next week Wednesday at which the BOZ will decide the benchmark interest rate for the next quarter while Friday will see the central bank offer K1.65billion in fixed income paper.