The U.S. Bureau of Public Debt offers Treasury Direct, a method to buy U.S. debt obligations without a broker or dealer intermediary. Auctions of securities are conducted with a competitive phase (i.e., a Dutch auction), in which bidders state interest rates they're willing to acceptand the Treasury awards blocks to the highest bids, followed by a non-competitive phase in which the remaining balance is offered at the average price set during the auction.
Competitive and noncompetitive components of the issue
- Total
- Competitive
- Primary dealer
- Direct bidder
- Indirect bidder
- Noncompetitive
- FIMA (noncompetitive)
- SOMA
- Competitive
Types of security
- Cash management bill (CMB)
- A short-term security with a maturity from a few days to a full year. Issued when needed by the Treasury to meet short-term financing needs. Tend to carry a higher interest rate but because their periods are short, they lead to less overal interest expense.
- Treasury Bill (T-Bill)
- A short-term debt obligation issued by the U.S. government with a maturity up to one year, commonly as one month, three months or six months (labeled as four, 13, or 26 weeks). Sold in increments of $1,000 up to $5 million. Do not make interest payments; instead, soldby at a discount from par, and the appreciation is redeemed upon maturity.
- Treasury Note (T-Note)
- A marketable, fixed-interest medium-term U.S. debt obligation, with a maturity of one to 10 years, making semi-annual interest payments. Sold at auction.
- Treasury Bond (T-Bond)
- A marketable, fixed-interest long-term U.S. debt obligation; marketable, fixed-interest; maturity greater than 10 years, making semi-annual inteest payments. Sold at auction: a single non-competitive bidder can buy $1,000 to $5 million, and a competitive bidder can buy up to35% of the offering.
- Treasury Inflation Protected Security (TIPS)
- As with T-Notes and T-Bonds, pays semi-annual interest and is redeemed for principle upon maturity, but the coupon payments and underlying principal are adjusted to compensate for inflation as measured by the CPI. Therefore, the real rate of return is guaranteed, but the cost is a low return. A.k.a. Treasury inflation-indexed securities.
Terms and cadences
- Cash management bill - As-needed terms of 1-339 days; auctioned as-needed, occasionally with two distinct issues on one day; Data Buffet time series use a daily frequency.
- 4-week (1-month) T-Bill - Term of 27-29 days; auctioned weekly on Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. ET.
- 8-week (2-month) T-Bill - Term of 54 days; inaugurated October 2018.
- 13-week (3-month) T-Bill - Term of 91-92 days; auctioned weekly on Monday at 11:30.
- 17-week (4-month) T-Bill - Auctioned weekly on Wednesday. First issued in October 2022.
- 26-week (6-month) T-Bill - Term of 181-182 days; auctioned weekly on Monday at 11:30.
- 52-week (1-year) T-Bill - Term of 365 days; auctioned monthly on a Tuesday at 1:00.
- 2-year T-Note - Monthly, usually on a Tuesday, at 1:00.
- 2-year FRN - Monthly, usually a Tuesday or Wednesday.
- 3-year T-Note - Quarterly until 2007, five times in 2008, monthly from 2009; Tuesday at 1:00.
- 5-year T-Note - Monthly, usually on a Wednesday, at 1:00.
- 5-year TIPS - Twice a year, in April and October.
- 7-year T-Note - Two to five times a year until 1993, not used 1994-2008, monthly since 2009; usually on a Thursday, at 1:00.
- 10-year T-Note - Monthly, on a Wednesday, at 1:00.
- 10-year TIPS - Four to five times a year.
- 20-year TIPS - Twice a year, in January and July.
- 20-year T-Bond - Monthly (four original issues and eight reopenings), on a Wednesday.
- 30-year T-Bond - One to four times a year until 2008, ten times in 2009, monthly since 2010 (four original issues and eight reopenings); on a Thursday, at 1:00.
- 30-year TIPS - As needed.
CUSIP prefixes
- 4-, 13-, 26-week: 912795-
- 30-year T-bond: 912810-
- Others: 912828-
Types of buyer
- Primary dealer
- Primary dealers as submitters bidding for their own house accounts.
- Direct bidder
- Non-Primary dealer submitters bidding for their own house accounts.
- Indirect bidder
- Customers placing competitive bids through a direct submitter, including foreign and international monetary authorities placing bids through the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
Auction results
- Tendered (Ths. USD)
- The dollar volume of bids submitted by a class of buyer.
- Accepted (Ths. USD)
- The dollar volume of bids by a class of buyer accepted by Treasury.
- High rate (%)
- All tenders at lower rates were accepted in full.
- Median rate (%)
- 50% of the amount of accepted competitive tenders was tendered at or below this rate.
- Low rate (%)
- 5% of the amount of accepted competitive tenders was tendered at or below this rate.
- Investment rate (%)
- Equivalent coupon-issue yield.
- Allotted at high (%)
- The fraction of the issue won by bidders paying the high rate.
- Price ($)
- Price per $100 of Treasury securities. Usually less than $100.
- Bid-to-cover ratio
- The ratio of tendered-to-accepted bids for the sum of competitive, noncompetitive, and FIMA; but not SOMA.
Timeliness
Instruments may undergo an "original" auction and then several "reopening" auctions. These are both listed on the tentative advance release calendar (ARC) PDF, but are not marked as such.
Auctions may be displaced to avoid holidays. The tentative ARC is not retroactively modified, but the actual dates and explanatory press releases are tabulated on the "announcement and results" page.
A single instrument is identified by a CUSIP (visible in the summary tables) and by "series" (in the press releases). For example, the 2-year FRN auctioned on 23 October 2013 is CUSIP 912828YN4 and series BJ-2021. In the "announcement and results" table, original and reopening auctions can be identified because they share a CUSIP.
On rare occasions, Treasury will conduct a "live small-value contingency auction" as a test.
