tthe two-year notes issued in this auction in violation of the Treasury regulation
that no bidder may bid for more than 35 percent of the issues in any
single auction. Although the holding of Salomon Brothers appears large, the
analysis in Kyle (1984) suggests that any position less than 100 percent will
not result in a market squeeze. Contrary to this prediction, however, it is
found that the prices of the two-year notes issued in May 1991 were significantly
higher than the estimated competitive prices in the four-week postissue
period.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section I describes the
institutional aspects of the Treasury note and Treasury bond auctions. Section
II presents estimates of the profits to winning allocations in Treasury auctions.
Section III examines the relation between auction profits and allocations
to banks and dealers. Section IV examines the secondary market
prices of the two-year notes issued in May 1991 and Section V concludes.