WASHINGTON – Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills were mixed in Monday’s auction with three-month bills unchanged and six-month bills dropping to their lowest level in three weeks.
The Treasury Department auctioned $26 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.025 per cent, unchanged from last week. Another $24 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 0.055 per cent, down from 0.060 per cent last week.
The six-month rate was the lowest since those bills stood at 0.050 per cent on June 23.
The discount rates reflect that the bills sell for less than face value. For a $10,000 bill, the three-month price was $9,999.37 while a six-month bill sold for $9,997.22. That would equal an annualized rate of 0.025 per cent for the three-month bills and 0.056 per cent for the six-month bills.
Separately, the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills, a popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, was 0.11 per cent last week, unchanged from the previous week.