Treasury bill rates on the decline and heading lower.
Investors chased $1.8 billion in Government of Jamaica Treasury Bills on offer on August 16 and pushed down the rates lower than in July, in the process.
The fall in rates helped the country’s central bank to lower its new benchmark overnight rate, by 25 basis points to 3.5 percent effective Friday August 25. The Treasury bill offerings, in tranches of $600 million each, replace $1.32 billion that matured in August. The offers with maturities of 91 days, 182 days and 273 days, resulted in average rates of 5.49 percent for the 91 days instrument, down from 5.63 percent in July, 5.99 percent for the 182 days bill down from 6.13 percent, with the 273 days bill, clearing at an average of 6.32 percent down from 6.5 percent in May.
The trend in interest rates is clear, with the downward drift resuming and needs to break below 5.8 percent for a sustained decline to take hold. It will only be a while, for Treasury bill rates to hit 4.5 percent but that is unlikely to happen until 2018. The accompanying chart shows the movement in the 182 days Treasury bill rate in red within a downward sloping channel pointing to lower rates ahead.
