NTMA to sell up to €1.25bn of bonds on Thursday

The National Treasury Management Agency plans to raise as much as €1.25 billion through the sale of bonds on Thursday.

The move comes a little over a month after the NTMA sold €4 billion of 10-year bonds. It has set a debt-raising target for the full year of €14 billion-€18 billion.

The NTMA now plans to issue another batch of 2029 bonds as well as securities due in 2037 under its auction on Thursday, in which it expects to raise €1 billion-€1.25 billion.

The market interest rate on the benchmark 10-year notes has fallen to 0.884 from a high of 1.03 per cent last month as investors speculate that the timeline for the European Central Bank to start increasing its main interest rate, which stands at zero, from the second half of this year to well into 2020.