The margin on short-term government securities further declined up to 68 basis points (bps) in the auction held Wednesday.

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on October 23 conducted the auction for the sale of 3-month, 6-month and 12-month Market Treasury Bills (MTBs) and received bids amounting to Rs 1.963 trillion with a realized value of Rs 1.826 billion. The received bids included Rs 869.18 billion for 3-month, Rs 268.911 billion for 6-month and Rs 825.68 billion for 12-month papers.

The federal government accepted bids amounting to Rs 532.53 billion (Rs 493.379 billion realized value). The borrowed amount is slightly lower than the actual target of Rs 600 billion set for this auction.

Like previous auction, the cut-off yield on all T-bills declined ranging from 25 bps to 68 bps in the Wednesday's auction.

The cut-off yield of 3-month T-bills declined by 39 bps to set at 13.2981 percent and some Rs 139.249 billion were borrowed. For the 6-month, bids amounting to Rs 183.281 billion were accepted at a cut-off yield of 13.2999, down 25.5 bps. Similarly, the cut-off yield of 12-month papers fell some 68 bps to fix at 12.7900 percent against Rs 210 billion.