Bond yields rise despite liquidity infusion through open market operations

RBI allows banks to transfer bonds to held-to-maturity for the second time as a special step till September 30

Despite the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) infusing Rs 6,232 crore liquidity through Open Market Operations (OMO) purchase of government bonds, yields rose on Friday as RBI also auctioned government bonds for a notified amount of Rs 15,000 crore.

The OMO was announced for an amount up to Rs 8,000 crore while the infusion was lesser than that. While liquidity still continues to be tight which resulted in yields rising. The yield on the 10-year benchmark government bond 7.16% 2023 ended at 8.26% compared with previous close of 8.23%. During intra-day trades the yield rose to 8.34%.

Meanwhile, RBI announced that as a one-time measure banks are allowed to transfer Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) securities from Available-For-Sale (AFS)/Held-For-Trading (HFT) to Held-Till-Maturity (HTM) category up to the limit of 24.50% of Net Demand an Time Liabilities. This transfer can be made over and above the one time shift in investments to HTM banks may have done at the beginning of the accounting year. However, RBI said that if banks choose to transfer securities, the transfers must be done at the earliest but not later than September 30.

However, despite today's rise in yields government bonds posted their biggest weekly gain in over four years due to the central bank's moves to support the rupee and liquidity in the market.

The 7.16% 2023 bond yield fell 64 basis points over the week, the sharpest since January 16, 2009.

Today RBI's government bond auction also failed to sail smoothly as there was partial devolvement on primary dealers to the tune of Rs 1,729 crore. According to go government bond dealers the partial devolvement was because the market was not happy with the auction cut-off yields.