The latest T-Bills auction results are out!
And for the first time in a while, there were no surprises.
In my weekend article I wrote that estimated fair value for the T-Bills should be somewhere from 4.2% – 4.3%.
Well – final cut-off yield came in at 4.28%, which was squarely within that range:
21 December 2022 T-Bills Auction Results – 4.28% yield, Full Allotment for Non-Competitive Bids
Diving into the numbers.
Final cutoff yield is 4.28%.
So everybody gets T-Bills at 4.28% regardless of whether you applied competitive or non-competitive bids.
A $4.4 billion issue size received $11.8 billion in applications, which was 2.68 times subscribed.
Allotment Results for T-Bills
Non-competitive allotments see 100% allotment.
Competitive Applications at cut-off allotment see 80% allotment.
Practically speaking, this means that:
If you applied non-competitive, you get 100% allotment of whatever amount you applied for.
If you applied competitive below 4.28%, you get 100% allotment (at 4.28% yield).
If you applied competitive at 4.28%, you get 80% allotment.
If you applied competitive above 4.28%, you get nothing.
Looks like retail demand picked up quite a bit
In my weekend article I also wrote that the wildcard would be how strongly retail demand comes in for this T-Bills auction.
Well, the application amounts quite clearly rose this time around, from $9.3 billion the previous auction to $11.8 billion this time around.
That’s a 26.9% increase in application amounts, so it’s a fairly big increase.
But if you dive deeper into the number though, you’ll find that while the average yield stays roughly flat (3.76% vs 3.73% the previous time).
The median yield went up quite a bit from 3.85% the previous auction to 4.00% this time around.
What exactly this means is open to interpretation, but my takeaway is that retail demand did return strongly for this auction, but the bids were more savvy this time around.
In other words – more bidders, but less low ballers, as investors bid higher this time around, leading to a more “rational” yield.
Interest Rates should start to stabilise going forward?
As shared in recent posts, I think it’s fairly clear that the bulk of the interest rate increases are behind us now.
Sure, I dont think interest rates have peaked just yet, but the pace of increase going forward now will be much slower than it was the past 6 months.
The biggest question now is probably how high we will go, and how long we will stay there.
And if the Feds are to be believed, terminal rate on the Fed Funds Rate should be around 5 – 5.25%, which will stay there for all of 2023.
If so, this might imply a peak 6 month T-Bill of about 4.5% (give or take 25 bps either way) this cycle.
Long story short, we are probably close to peak interest rates around here, so it doesn’t hurt to start locking in yields are these kind of levels.
I’ll try to do a fixed deposit round up this weekend as well, to take a look at the most attractive Fixed Deposit options for investors with excess cash.
As always – love to hear what you think!
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