On Monday, April 11, the ECB announced its weekly Main Refinancing Operation.

The auction was conducted on Tuesday, April 12, and attracted bids from euro area eligible counterparties of €94.13 billion, €9.60 billion higher than the amount bid for in the previous week. The bid amount was allotted in full at a fixed rate equivalent to the prevailing main refinancing rate of 1.25 per cent, in accordance with current ECB policy.

On Tuesday, April 12, the ECB conducted a Special Term Refinancing Operation (STRO) with a maturity of 28 days. This attracted bids of €83.69 billion, which were allotted in full at a fixed rate equivalent to the prevailing main refinancing rate of 1.25 per cent, also in accordance with current ECB policy.

On Tuesday, April 12, the ECB conducted an auction for a seven-day fixed-term deposit intended to absorb €77 billion.

The operation was designed to sterilise the effect of purchases made under the Securities Markets Programme and settled by the previous Friday, April 8.

The auction was carried out at a variable rate, with euro area eligible counterparties allowed to place up to two bids at a maximum rate of 1.25 per cent. It attracted bids amounting to €102.56 billion, with the ECB allotting €77 billion or 75.08 per cent of the total amount bid for.

The marginal rate on the auction was set at 1.12 per cent, with the weighted average rate at 1.05 per cent. Also on Tuesday, April 12, which was the last day of the reserve deposit maintenance period, the ECB conducted an overnight Fine-tuning Liquidity Absorbing Operation at a variable rate, with counterparties allowed to place up to two bids at a maximum rate of one per cent.

The operation attracted bids of €81.34 billion, with the ECB accepting €78.87 billion or 96.96 per cent of the amount bid for.

The marginal rate on the operation was set at 0.80 per cent, per cent, while the weighted average allotment rate was 0.79 per cent.

On Wednesday, April 13, the ECB conducted a seven-day US dollar funding operation through collateralised lending in conjunction with the US Federal Reserve. This operation was carried out at a fixed rate of 1.09 per cent and once more, no bids were placed by euro area eligible counterparties.

In the domestic primary market for Treasury Bills, the Treasury invited tenders for 91-day bills maturing on July 15 and 273-day bills maturing on January 13 of next year. Bids of €40.41 million were submitted for the 91-day bills, with the Treasury accepting €3.92 million, and €40.11 million worth of bids were submitted for the 273-day bills, with the Treasury accepting €18.69 million.

Since €41 million worth of bills matured during the week, the outstanding balance of Treasury Bills Bills decreased by €18.39 million, to stand at €375.69 million.

The yield from the 91-day bill auction was 1.018 per cent, i.e. 0.1 basis points higher than on bills with a similar tenor issued on April 8, 2011, representing a bid price of 99.7433 per 100 nominal.

The yield from the 273-day bill auction was 1.56 per cent, i.e. 39.9 basis points higher than on bills with a similar tenor issued on January 14, representing a bid price of 98.8308 per 100 nominal.

During the week under review, trading on the Malta Stock Exchange amounted to €1.93 million, conducted by private brokers.

Today, the Treasury will invite tenders for 92-day bills maturing on July 22.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.