Spanish treasury places 3.458 bln euros on market with negative interest rates

The Spanish treasury on Tuesday placed treasury bills with a value of 3.458 billion euros (3.853 billion U.S. dollars) at negative interest rates on the market, exceeding expectations and registering a high demand of more than 9.2 billion euros.

A total of 505.70 million euros worth of three-month treasury bills carried an average interest rate of -0.027 percent as opposed to the -0.029 percent of the previous issue.

The placement also included 2.952 billion euros worth of nine-month treasury bills that fetched an average interest rate of -0.005 percent, below the 0.009 percent of the previous auction.

So far, the Spanish treasury has placed around 63.2 billion euros of medium and long-term debt on the market, which represented 44.5 percent of the country's financial goals for the year, or 141.996 billion euros. (1 euro = 1.13 U.S. dollars) Endit