SINGAPORE’S Treasury bill (T-bill) with a six-month tenor auctioned on Thursday (Oct 27) reported a cut-off yield of 4.19 per cent per annum – a record high in decades and 42 basis points higher than the 3.77 per cent on the issuance a fortnight ago.

The risk-free fixed-income instrument last achieved a yield of 4 per cent in 1989 after peaking at 4.73 per cent in 1988, said the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) website, which showed results dating back to 1987.

Yields on six-month T-bills started to nudge above 3 per cent in September, jumping from 2.99 per cent for the Sep 1 auction to 3.32 per cent for the issuance a fortnight later, amid a rising-interest-rate environment as the United States central bank goes on a hiking spree to arrest runaway inflation. And there is a spill-over effect in Singapore.