How a U.S. Treasury auction turns bids into one price

Treasury auction results report rates, bids and an issue price. The numbers can look like different answers to the same question. They describe different parts of the auction. A 119-day bill sold in October 2024 shows how the fields fit together.

See how Treasury sorts the bids

TreasuryDirect describes two kinds of bids. A noncompetitive bidder agrees to take the terms the auction sets, subject to the rules of the offering. Competitive bidders specify the discount rate, yield or margin they will accept, depending on the security. Treasury accepts complying noncompetitive bids first and works through competitive bids from the lowest rate upward until it fills the offering. Successful bidders receive terms based on the highest accepted bid.

At the cutoff, more bidders may want securities than Treasury has left to allocate. Treasury can accept only part of the bids at that rate. This is why an auction result can report a high rate and a separate share allotted at that rate.

Read an actual bill result

In the October 16, 2024 auction of the 119-day bill identified as CUSIP 912797NH6, Treasury reported a high rate of 4.420% and allotted 64.69% of the dollar amount tendered at that rate. Lower-rate tenders were accepted in full. The auction price was 98.538944 per $100 face value. It was issued on October 22 and matured on February 18, 2025.

A price of about $98.54 per $100 face value gives a difference of about $1.46 between the issue price and the face amount at maturity. The bill’s high rate and the separately listed investment rate of 4.548% use annualized conventions. The $1.46 is the price difference over this bill’s 119 days. Keeping these measures separate makes the result easier to read.

Read bid-to-cover as a ratio

Treasury’s footnote divided about $195.0 billion tendered by about $64.0 billion accepted for the specified subtotal and reported a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.05. That compares dollar amounts of bids and awards. It gives no count of distinct bidders. The result also lists an overall total that includes a separately reported central bank account entry. Use the subtotal identified in the footnote to recreate the published ratio.

Use the auction date, security and term when comparing results. This case explains how the fields work using one archived result.