How to watch Treasury auctions?

Discussion in 'Trading' started by kmiklas, Mar 27, 2019.

  1. kmiklas

    kmiklas

    Gm Peeps,

    How can I watch US Treasury auctions?

    Example: Today (3/27) the US Treasury will auction 41B in 5-year notes; tomorrow, 32B in 7-year.
    https://www.treasurydirect.gov/instit/instit.htm?upcoming

    How are the sales of these securities normally monitored? How can watch how these are selling? Is there a live stream of some kind anywhere?

    We all know that brisk sales of these instruments does not bode well for the equities markets. I’d really like to be as “in-the-know” as possible on how they’re selling.

    Thanks,
    Keith :^D
     
  2. kj5159

    kj5159

    From my understanding it's a dutch auction process, with individuals' orders getting priority over institutions. Each participant bids at an interest rate and the Treasury sells bonds at the lowest possible rate that was bid until it chews through the order book and then goes up to the next rate that was bid etc. until it sold the amount of bonds it wanted to sell, in total.

    High demand for treasurys doesn't in itself necessarily mean anything except people want a lot of bonds, there could be many reasons why they want them.
     
    sle and kmiklas like this.
  3. kmiklas

    kmiklas

    So how do I monitor how the auction is going?
     
  4. kmiklas

    kmiklas

  5. sle

    sle

    It's not really an auction, it's a computer process so there is nothing to actually watch. It's not like there is a dude on a podium with a hammer :)

    Usually, you know the yield of the WI before the time and then you get the results (the yield placed, the tail etc). There was a time when you could have traded on the results (i.e. bot/sold the appropriate bond futures), but it's in the HFT domain nowdays.