<html><base href="http://biz.yahoo.com/"><title>Yahoo - U.S. to sell $37 bln of securities next week</title><center><table cellpadding=2 cellspacing=0 width="100%"><tr><td width="1%"><a href="http://quote.yahoo.com/?u"><img src="http://us.yimg.com/i/fi/main4.gif" border=0 width=281 height=31 alt="Yahoo! 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The sales will raise $9.2 billion in cash and redeem $27.8 billion of notes maturing Aug. 15.<p>The 9-3/4-year note is a reopening of the existing 5-5/8 percent 10-year note that matures on May 15, 2008.<p>WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department announced on Wednesday that it will sell $37 billion of notes and bonds next week and will lower minimum purchase amounts on many securities to encourage small investors to buy them.<p>Treasury will auction $16 billion of 5-year notes next Tuesday, $11 billion of 9-3/4-year notes on Wednesday and $10 billion of 30-year bonds on Thursday. The sales will raise $9.2 billion in cash and redeem $27.8 billion of notes maturing Aug. 15.<p>The 9-3/4-year note is a reopening of the existing 5-5/8 percent 10-year note that matures on May 15, 2008.<p>Gary Gensler, assistant Treasury secretary for financial markets, announced that all bills, notes and bonds will be offered in $1,000 minimum amounts starting next week. The reduction from a $10,000 minimum for bill purchases and from $5,000 for notes with maturities of four years or less is designed to make it easier for small investors to buy Treasury securities.<p>Five-year notes and 30-year bonds already were sold in amounts as small as $1,000.<p>``This was really just our attempt to broaden this out to all Americans,'' Gensler said, noting that computers have reduced the paperwork burden that used to make it too costly to process smaller purchases.<p>In another move aimed at making it easier for small investors to buy Treasuries, Gensler said the department will allow customers to buy securities directly over the Internet starting in September and by touch-tone telephone in October.<p>Gensler said next week's sales of 9-3/4-year notes and 30-year bonds will be held in a multiple-price format. The five-year note sale will be in a single-price or Dutch format as usual.<p>He said Treasury expected to make an announcement about a possible switch to the Dutch format for the longer-dated securities by the next quarterly refunding auctions in November. Treasury is still weighing whether changing the auction format would save the government money in its borrowing operations, he said.<p>Gensler, in response to questions, said debt buybacks remained an option for the government but indicated there were no plans to do so in the short term. ``We would not anticipate at this time having access to any new tools,'' he said.<p>He confirmed that Treasury plans to sell a 30-year bond at its next refunding auctions in November.<p>Gensler said a private-sector borrowing advisory committee recommended that Treasury publish a regular schedule for sales of inflation-indexed securities to be issued on a quarterly basis.<p>``We plan to announce, before the October auction, a regular schedule of indexed note and bond auctions for issue on Jan. 15, April 15, July 15 and Oct. 15,'' he said.<p>In a separate report, the borrowing panel suggested discontinuing sales of a five-year inflation-indexed note in order to concentrate on the 10-year note and 30-year bond sales where investor demand was strongest. Gensler made no comment on the proposal.<p>Among other changes in auction procedures, Gensler said Treasury was shifting all three- and six-month bill announcements to Thursday from Tuesday. ``This will shorten the when-issued (trading) period by two weekdays,'' he said.<p>The weekly bill sales will still take place on Monday. <p>The monthly 52-week bill sale will be moved to Tuesday from Thursday. They will settle two days later on Thursday, shortening when-issued trading by four week days.<p>As previously reported, Treasury said it expected to pay down $45 billion during the third quarter and to have a cash balance of $40 billion on Sept. 30. It estimated its net market borrowing requirement in the fourth quarter will be $10-15 billion, assuming a $20-billion cash balance on Dec 31.  <p><hr align=left width="33%" noshade><table border=0 cellpadding=0><tr valign=top><td colspan=3><b>Related News Categories:</b> <a href="/reports/ipo.html">IPOs</a>, <a href="/n/z/z0002.html">options</a>, <a href="/reports/stocks.html">US Market News</a></td></tr></table><hr align=left width="33%" noshade><center><form method=get action="http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news"><input size=24 name=p> <input type=submit value="Search News"><input type=hidden name=n value=10> <a href="http://www.yahoo.com/docs/info/news_search_help.html"><small>Help</small></a></form><hr><small>Copyright © 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. 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