Sales of public securities to individuals via the internet totaled R$8.01 billion in August, the National Treasury announced this Monday (21). This is the highest monthly amount since the program was created in 2002, surpassing the previous record from March 2023when sales had totaled R$6.84 billion and broke a record.
Compared to July, sales rose 24.6%. Compared to August last year, volume rose 150.5%. The data was released almost a month late due to the strike by National Treasury employees, who halted the sale of program bonds three times in less than a month.
Two factors contributed to the high sales volume in August. The first was the maturity of long-term inflation-adjusted bonds, which were exchanged for new paper. The second was the strong issuance of bonds adjusted by the Selic Rate (the economy’s basic interest rate), whose monthly issues reached R$3.34 billion and only lost to March 2023, when they had totaled R$4.32 billion.
The securities most sought after by investors in August were those adjusted for inflation (Extended National Consumer Price Index – IPCA), whose share of sales reached 46.6%. Securities linked to Selic (the economy’s basic interest rate) corresponded to 41.7% of the total, while pre-fixed securities, with interest rates defined at the time of issuance, totaled 7.8%.
Intended for financing retirements, Tesouro Renda+, launched at the beginning of 2023, accounted for 2.4% of sales. Created in August last year, the new Treasury Educa+ title, which aims to finance savings for higher education, attracted just 1.5% of sales.
The interest in securities linked to basic interest rates is justified by the high level of the Selic Rate. The rate, which was 10.5% per year from May to August this year, was increased to 10.75% per year. With the expectation of new highs, the shares remain attractive. Inflation-linked bonds have also attracted investors because of the expectation of a rise in official inflation in the coming months.
The total Treasury Direct stock reached R$141.54 billion at the end of August, a drop of 2.64% in relation to the previous month (R$145.39 billion), but an increase of 16.4% in relation to August of last year (R$ 121.61 billion). The drop occurred because redemptions exceeded sales by R$4.94 billion last month, mainly due to the record volume of maturities of inflation-linked bonds.
Investors
In relation to the number of investors, 303.56 thousand participants registered in the program in the month before last. The total number of investors reached 29,602,068. In the last 12 months, the number of investors has increased by 16.2%. The total number of active investors (with open operations) reached 2,664,829, an increase of 12.3% in 12 months.
The use of Tesouro Direto by small investors can be seen in the considerable number of sales of up to R$5,000, which corresponded to 79.2% of the total 869,618 sales transactions that took place in August. Investments of up to R$1,000 alone represented 56.4%. The average value per operation reached R$11,190.66, inflated by the exchange of inflation-adjusted securities, used mainly by those who want to finance their retirement.
Investors are preferring short-term roles. Sales of bonds of up to five years represent 79.6% of the total. Operations with terms between five and ten years correspond to 6.8% of the total. Papers with a maturity of more than ten years represented 13.6% of sales.
The complete balance sheet of Tesouro Direto is available on the website Transparent Treasury.
Fundraising
Tesouro Direto was created in January 2002 to popularize this type of application and allow individuals to purchase public securities directly from the National Treasury, via the internet, without the intermediation of financial agents. The investor only needs to pay a semi-annual fee to B3, the Brazilian stock exchange, which has custody of the securities. More information can be obtained on the website of Treasury Direct.
The sale of bonds is one of the ways that the government has to raise resources to pay debts and honor commitments. In exchange, the National Treasury undertakes to return the amount with an additional fee that may vary according to the Selic rate, inflation rates, exchange rate or a rate defined in advance in the case of fixed-rate securities.
