Bond Auctions

Tail and allotment splits are the Bank of Canada's own published figures — no proxy calculation needed, unlike the US "vs. Prior Yield" signal below. The Bank has only reported the allotment splits on more recent auctions, so older rows in this table may show "—" for those two columns.

Federal bonds (Bunds, Bobls, Schätze, Green Bunds); bills left out. Germany often sells less than it offers: the rest is "retained" and sold into the market later, so a high retention share means investors bid for less of the auction.

Bid-to-cover is calculated from the Ministry of Finance's published bids and amounts accepted. Tail = yield at the lowest accepted price minus the average yield, the number Japanese bond markets watch most closely.

Korean auctions are single-price (every winning bid gets the same yield), so there is no tail - the range of bids received shows how spread out demand was.

Tail = cut-off yield minus average yield. "MAS took" is the amount the Monetary Authority of Singapore bought itself at the auction.

vs. Prior Yield (Stop-Through / Tail) — United States. This compares the yield actually awarded at auction to the Treasury's own par yield curve rate for the matching maturity, taken from the prior business day. If the auction prices below that reference (a negative concession), it "stopped through" — demand was stronger than the market had priced in. If it prices above (a positive concession, a "tail"), demand was weaker and the Treasury had to pay up to clear the auction. This is a free proxy for the standard when-issued (WI) comparison traders use — genuine WI trading data is only available through paid terminals (Bloomberg/Refinitiv), so this site uses the public yield curve instead and labels it accordingly rather than calling it "When Issued." Because the comparison needs a day-over-day history of the yield curve that this site only started building recently, signals will show "—" for the first couple of weeks until enough history has accumulated.

Dealer Takedown — United States. Every auction's accepted bids split three ways: primary dealers (the Treasury's designated backstop, required to bid), direct bidders (institutions bidding for their own account), and indirect bidders (typically bidding through a dealer on behalf of someone else — the standard proxy for foreign central bank and institutional demand). A high indirect share suggests real end-demand showed up; a high primary-dealer share suggests dealers had to absorb supply that end-investors didn't want at that yield.

Tail (bps) — Canada. The Bank of Canada publishes this directly: the gap between the average yield and the high (worst) yield accepted at auction, in basis points. A small tail means bids were tightly clustered near the average — strong, confident demand. A wide tail means the range of accepted bids was more spread out — weaker or less certain demand.

Distributor / Customer and Canadian / Foreign — Canada. These are the Bank of Canada's own allotment breakdowns: how much of each auction went to primary distributors (the Canadian equivalent of primary dealers) versus their customers, and how much went to Canadian versus foreign accounts. The Canadian/Foreign split is a direct read on foreign demand — no proxy needed, unlike the indirect-bidder estimate used on the US side.

vs. Recent Avg — Germany, Japan, South Korea, Singapore. Normal bid-to-cover levels differ a lot between countries (German auctions routinely clear at 1.1–2.5x, Japanese ones at 3–4x), so comparing across borders says little. Instead, each auction is compared with the average of the previous auctions of the same term in the same country. More than 15% below that average shows in red; more than 15% above shows in green.

Retained — Germany. Germany's Finance Agency doesn't have to sell the full amount it offers. Whatever doesn't find buyers at an acceptable price is kept back ("retained") and sold into the market over the following weeks. A retention of 40% or more (shown in red) is the clearest sign that investors wanted less German debt than was on offer.

Tail — Japan and Singapore. The gap between the worst (highest) yield the government accepted and the average yield, in basis points. As with Canada, a small tail means tightly clustered, confident bids; a wide tail means the government had to reach further to fill the auction. Large tails at Japanese auctions regularly make headlines.

Why no dealer takedown outside North America? Only the US Treasury and the Bank of Canada publish who bought each auction (dealers vs. end investors, domestic vs. foreign). Germany's retention, Japan's and Singapore's tails, and Korea's bid range are the closest equivalents the other debt offices publish.