Following active buying interest in the ringgit bond market, particularly in government securities, all of the top 10 bonds traded during the week were MGS and GII as well as BNM notes, which are all sovereign papers.
The All Bond Index Performance had a weekly gain of 0.26 per cent from 122.01 to 122.33 points.
Similar buying interest in government securities and government guaranteed issuance in the previous week was seen where both the MGS and government guaranteed curves continued to display a bull flattening trend.
The bullish government guaranteed segment was mainly driven by active trading of the long-tenured government guaranteed issuance by Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd and Pengurusan Air SPV Bhd.
It was a relatively quiet week compared with the previous week when many new issuers made their way into the local bond market in the wake of strong foreign buying interest in emerging markets which has remained robust since the beginning of 2011.
The most significant issuance of the week was CIMB Bank Bhd’s RM1.35 billion worth of AA1 rated 10 non-call five year subordinated debts on August 8, 2011, with a coupon rate of 4.15 per cent.
Earlier in the week, Bank Negara Malaysia announced the reopening of the 15-year MGS (MGS 4/26) at an issue size of RM5 billion (Public tender: RM3 billion and private placement: RM2 billion) on August 15, 2011.