Term Premium End-of-Month Effect

Does the term premium as measured by returns to zero-coupon U.S. Treasury notes (T-notes) concentrate during some part of the monthly cycle? In their August 2019 paper entitled “Predictable End-of-Month Treasury Returns”, Jonathan Hartley and Krista Schwarz examine the monthly cycle of excess returns on 2-year, 5-year and 10-year T-notes. Specifically, they calculate average excess return by trading day before end-of-month (EOM), with excess return measured as raw T-note return minus general collateral repo rate. Using modeled daily prices for the specified T-notes and daily general collateral repo rate during January 1990 through December 2018, they find that: (more…)