On Monday, January 14, the ECB announced its weekly main refinancing operation. The auction was conducted on Tuesday, January 15, and attracted bids from euro area eligible counterparties of €131.24 billion, €53.52 billion higher than the bid amount in the previous week. The amount was allotted in full at a fixed rate equivalent to the prevailing main refinancing rate of 0.75 per cent, in accordance with current ECB policy.

On Tuesday, January 15, the ECB conducted a special-term refinancing operation with a maturity of 28 days. This attracted bids of €10.46 billion, which was allotted in full at a fixed rate equivalent to the prevailing main refinancing rate of 0.75 per cent, also in accordance with the current ECB policy.

Also on Tuesday, January 15, the ECB conducted an auction for a seven-day fixed-term deposit intended to absorb €208.5 billion. This operation was designed to sterilise the effect of purchases made under the Securities Markets Programme that were settled but had not yet matured by the previous Friday, January 11.

The auction was carried out at a variable rate, with euro area eligible counterparties allowed to place up to four bids at a maximum rate of 0.75 per cent. It attracted bids amounting to €356.29 billion with the ECB allotting €208.5 billion, or 58.52 per cent of the total bid amount. The marginal rate on the auction was once again set at 0.01 per cent, with the weighted average rate also set at 0.01 per cent.

On Wednesday, January 16, the ECB conducted a seven-day US dollar funding operation through collateralised lending in conjunction with the US Federal Reserve. This operation attracted bids of $0.06 billion, which was allotted in full at a fixed rate of 0.65 per cent.

Domestic Treasury bill market

In the domestic primary market for Treasury bills, the Treasury invited tenders for 91-day and 182-day bills maturing on April 19 and July 19, respectively.

Bids of €58.10 million were submitted for the 91-day bills with the Treasury accepting €20 million, while bids of €53.11 million were submitted for the 182-day bills, with the Treasury accepting €19 million. Since €24.35 million worth of bills matured during the week, the outstanding balance of Treasury bills increased by €14.65 million, to stand at €240.24 million.

The yield from the 91-day bill auction was 0.767 per cent, i.e. 1.9 basis points lower than that on bills with a similar tenor issued on January 11, representing a bid price of 99.8065 per 100 nominal. The yield from the 182-day bill auction was 0.837 per cent, i.e. 4.7 basis points lower than on bills with a similar tenor issued on January 11, representing a bid price of 99.5786 per 100 nominal.

During the week under review, there was no trading on the Malta Stock Exchange.

Today, the Treasury will invite tenders for 91-day bills and 182-day bills maturing on April 26 and July 26 respectively.

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.