Collateral Scarcity Fuels Strong Pricing At ACGB Apr-24 Supply

Pricing was very strong at today’s ACGB Apr-24 auction, with the weighted average yield pricing 1.82bp through prevailing mids at the time of supply (per Yieldbroker), although the spread between the lowest and highest accepted yields was wide (1.5bp). That points to the lower liquidity/collateral scarcity fuelling a bid from certain quarters (as we flagged beforehand, there was ~A$700mn of the line borrowed via the RBA’s SLF, so some short covering demand may have emerged at auction). We also noted that the auction may lack broader appeal given relative constraints, which seems to have held true, with the cover ratio barely topping 2.50x, once again pointed to a lower number of bidders driving the strong pricing through mids.