25 May 2004 12:07
OFZ prices down amid rising sales and available ruble shortage
MOSCOW. May 25 (Interfax) - Quotations for a majority of OFZ federal loan bonds were down 10-40 basis points as
selling increased on the domestic debt market on Tuesday to 673.741 million rubles.
Moscow bank representatives say the main reason for increased sale bids was a tightening of ruble availability in the
banking system due to tax-paying time. One the other hand, there was no aggressive selling on the GKO-OFZ market on May
25, the said.
Interest rates on 'long' government bonds are fairly attractive to a lot of investors, somewhat restraining
sales. Furthermore, some OFZ holders have the opportunity to get additional ruble resources under government bond
security at direct Repo auctions held by the Central Bank to refinance the banking system in conditions of a shortage of
available rubles. This also reduces the number of those wanting to sell on the GKO-OFZ market and slows down the pace of
quotation slippage.
The volume of trades done in the morning and afternoon direct Repo auctions with OFZ topped 11 billion rubles.
Average weighted interest rates at the first auction were at 8.26% per year, 8.59% in the second.
Tuesday saw amortization bonds (OFZ-AD) series 46001 (maturing in 2008) slide most of all, average weighted prices
for these dropping 44 basis points to 110.02% of face value. Trade in these bonds came to just 63.546 million
rubles.
Second among the price-sliders were bonds from one of the longest- term issues OFZ-AD 4614 (maturing in 2018), which
shed 35 basis points to 105.98% of face value. Deals with these bonds were also not significant, totaling 17.858 million
rubles.
The only exception was fixed-coupon-yield (OFZ-FD) series 27025 bonds (maturing in 2007). By the end of trading,
average weighted prices for these were up 29 basis points at 101.05% of face value, with overall trading of 247.266
million rubles or more than 36% of all trading volume on the OFZ market on Tuesday.
Average weight yield on the OFZ-FD-and OFZ-AD market picked up 2.47% to 7.06% per year on May 25.
Also, there were five deals for 187.49 million rubles overall with GKO 21172, a good result for this segment of the
market, as there have been pretty much no operations with GKO lately.
Market experts predict the GKO-OFZ market will remain in a state of low liquidity with rubles in short supply on
Wednesday. [RU EUROPE EEU ASIA EMRG GVD INSI] cf
[Interfax] |
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