The central bank has carried out 3 billion yuan reverse repurchase operations for 3 consecutive days

  Experts say monetary policy orientation has not changed

  Our reporter Liu Qi

  After launching a 7-day reverse repurchase operation of 10 billion yuan on July 1, the People's Bank of China (hereinafter referred to as the "central bank") did not continue the rolling rhythm of 10 billion yuan in the past, but continued for 3 consecutive working days (July 4 From July 6 to July 6), a 7-day reverse repurchase operation of 3 billion yuan will be carried out, which is also the lowest reverse repurchase operation scale since January 27, 2021.

At the same time, given that a total of 370 billion yuan of reverse repurchase expired from July 1 to July 6, as of July 6, the central bank has achieved a cumulative net return of 351 billion yuan at the beginning of the month.

  The bond market reacted strongly to this.

On July 4, treasury bond futures closed down across the board, with the main 10-year treasury bond futures contract (T2209) down 0.24%, and the 5-year treasury bond futures main contract (TF2209) down 0.27%; spot bond yields mostly rose, of which 10 Active Treasury bonds rose 2.25 basis points to 2.8475%.

  In the opinion of analysts, the continuous scale of the central bank's 3 billion yuan reverse repurchase operation does not mean that liquidity will tend to tighten. For liquidity, more attention should be paid to changes in "price" rather than "quantity".

  In an interview with a reporter from Securities Daily, Wu Chaoming, deputy dean of the Financial Information Research Institute, believed that the central bank's operation scale should not be overly concerned, but the interest rate level should be more concerned, that is, the signal meaning of "price" is more important than "quantity".

The current level of DR007 (the 7-day repurchase rate of inter-bank depository financial institutions pledged with interest rate bonds) is much lower than the 7-day reverse repurchase rate, which indicates that the market liquidity is abundant, the central bank’s monetary policy is still stable, and the orientation has not occurred. Variety.

  According to the data of Oriental Fortune Choice, as of 15:00 on July 6, the weighted average interest rate of DR007 was 1.5685%, and its weighted average interest rate in the past 5 days was 1.6877%, which were significantly lower than the current 7-day reverse repurchase operation rate (2.1%). .

  "The current economy is in the process of recovery, but the momentum is weak, so there is no need to significantly tighten liquidity. In addition, this has released the central bank's signal of 'not flooding'." Wu Chaoming added.

  Li Chao, chief economist of Zheshang Securities, believes that the focus of the central bank's open market operations is "price" rather than "quantity". The core reason for the small operation scale is that the liquidity of the interbank system at the beginning of the quarter is reasonably sufficient, and the funding gap and liquidity needs. Not big, it does not mean that the central bank tightens liquidity.

  In fact, as early as the first quarter of 2021, the central bank pointed out in China's monetary policy implementation report that "when the market observes the central bank's open market operations, it should focus on policy interest rates such as open market operation interest rates, medium-term lending facility interest rates, and market benchmark interest rates. Over a period of time, we should not pay too much attention to the number of central bank operations and avoid over-interpreting the orientation of monetary policy.”

  In addition, according to the CFETS-NEX RMB Fund Sentiment Index, which reflects the tightness of funds in the inter-bank money market (the index increases from 0 to 100, 50 is balanced, and if it exceeds 50, it reflects tight funds), the index on June 30. It rose to 65 at 16:00, the highest level in June, and fell back to 50 at 8:45 on July 1, and was below 50 at most of the following time points, reflecting the tense state of funds in the inter-bank money market at the end of half a year at the beginning of July. Relief occurs.

  In Li Chao's view, the current monetary policy is still to stabilize growth and ensure employment as the primary goal, maintain a stable and slightly loose policy tone, and the core is still to ease credit.

  Wu Chaoming believes that in the second half of the year, monetary policy needs to strike a balance among the multiple goals of stabilizing employment, prices and exchange rates. And cooperate with fiscal efforts to support credit expansion.

(Securities Daily)