Greece holds T-bill auction
Greece sold 1.137 billion euros ($1.43 billion) of six-month T-bills on Tuesday, with the yield easing from a previous auction in August, the country’s debt agency said.
The sale’s bid-cover ratio was 1.95, down from 2.06 in the Aug 7 auction. Greece paid a yield of 4.54 percent, 14 basis points below the previous auction. The sum raised includes 263 million euros in non-competitive bids.
Monthly T-bill sales are Greece’s sole source of market funding. Tuesday’s auction will fund the rollover of a previous 1.4 billion euro issue that comes due on Friday.
The bulk of T-bill issues are traditionally taken up by Greek banks, who depend on the ECB for liquidity. This means that funding costs do not fully reflect strains from the country’s debt crisis. [Reuters]
