Old habits die hard. Treasury heads today found it difficult to get into chat mode and trade in government securities on screen. They preferred the time trusted mode: trading on the telephone.
The first day of screen-based trading in government securities was marked by thin trading, with almost half of the active market participants staying on the sidelines. Lack of trading interest led to a sharp drop in security prices, pushing up bond yields after almost a month. Bonds prices fell by 50-75 paise at the longer end of the market and the benchmark 10-year paper yield went up to 7.26 per cent today from 7.21 per cent yesterday.