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5:00Treasury Auctions: How a Government Borrows $100B Before Lunch
At 1:00 p.m. on a Wednesday the US Treasury sells more debt than most countries owe, in a single auction that closes in seconds. Everyone who wins pays the exact same price, even the bidder who would have paid more.
Governments do not phone investors one at a time. They run scheduled auctions, and the US Treasury runs them on a fixed calendar, 444 public auctions in 2025 alone, selling Bills, Notes, Bonds, TIPS and FRNs. The auction is the primary market: it is the moment new debt is created and sold. Everything after, the trading you see on screens, is the secondary market reselling what the auction first placed.
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