But those fears eased after a treasury bill sale and buyback went smoothly this month.
European stocks were firmer Tuesday as a Spanish treasury bill auction was deemed successful.
From 1934 to 1940, the average yield of the 3-month Treasury bill was 0.15%.
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The yield at that time was more than 4.5%, far more than the paltry yield on a Treasury bill or note.
U.S. Treasury bill rates have essentially fallen to zero, and the Fed's policy interest rates are only slightly above that level.
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Prediction 8: The 10-Year Treasury bill yield will move towards 3%.
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You can take advantage by buying deposits in the local treasury bill market through a global bank, but fast-moving prices make this tricky.
The fund charges an annual management fee of 1.25% plus a performance fee of 20% on returns exceeding the U.S. Treasury bill rate.
Short-term interest rates such as the overnight bank borrowing rate and one-month and one- year Treasury bill rates are already close to zero.
The rate on the 10-year Treasury Bill fell to just a little over 3% today, which is the lowest rate in five decades.
The Federal Reserve cannot force anyone to sell a Treasury Bill, nor can a private bank force you to take out a loan.
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But if you have money in the safe instrument, a U.S. treasury bill or an FDIC - an FDIC-insured bank account, you're getting a very, very low return now.
In exchange for this the US government receives a lower Debt-to-GDP ratio, which affords it the option of reducing its Treasury Bill exposure should interest rates rise.
The U.S. experienced such a phenomenon in the 1930s, when Treasury bill rates were almost 0% and unemployment remained in double digits until the Second World War.
Some of the best are in great American companies, whose balance sheets are the envy of Washington, with many carrying dividend yields above the 10-year Treasury bill.
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In a counterintuitive move that could be taken as good news, the very shortest term rates inched higher: the three-month Treasury bill, for example, crept up to 0.05% from 0.03%.
When the dollar was last unquestionably convertible into gold (at least internationally), in the 1950s and early 1960s, Treasury bill yields averaged 2.2% and yields on longer maturities averaged just 3.3%.
The wider implications of Friday's downgrades in Europe were also being digested, with the sovereign-backed European Financial Stability Facility's borrowing costs nudging higher ahead of Tuesday's scheduled treasury bill sale by the bailout fund.
In each case when real rates (calculated by subtracted the 12-month moving average of the year-over-year change of CPI from the 12-month moving average of the 3-month Treasury bill) went negative in the 1970s, the first years of the new decade, and off and on from 2008 until now gold has had a dramatic rise in price.
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The yield on the three-month Treasury-bill, considered one of the safest investments, held at 0.01%, showing just how skittish investors still are.
European markets finished lower, with the Stoxx Europe 600 down 0.4%, as a disappointing Spanish treasury-bill auction offset better-than-expected consumer-confidence data in France.
The U.S. government needs Chinese investors at its Treasury-bill auctions.
Summers is a former president of Harvard University and served as treasury secretary under Bill Clinton.
For years, the U.S. Treasury footed the bill for the extra pension payments.
Mr Geithner learned about crisis management as an aide to Lawrence Summers who rose to Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton.
Before coming to London the German Chancellor was in Brussels talking not about the EU Budget but, instead, about the need for long-term EU reform - in particular the need for "more Europe" to control the tax and spending decisions of member states as the price of the German Treasury footing the bill for their problems and debts.
The BBC understands the health secretary fought off attempts by the Treasury to have the bill for the scheme paid for from his department's budget.
In an effort to sway debate now under way on the Farm Bill, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Thursday blasted a tax proposal put forward by Democrats, saying it could damage foreign investment in the U.S. and harm America's economic relations with its most important trading partners.
Speaking during second reading of the Equitable Life (Payments) Bill on 14 September 2010, shadow Treasury Minister Gareth Thomas said Labour would support the bill but he attacked what he said was a complete change in policy by the Conservative party now they were in government.
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