treasuries

Negotiable debt obligations of a national (federal) government, comprising of treasury bills (maturity less than one year), treasury notes (maturity one to ten years), and treasury bonds (maturity over 10 years). Treasuries are backed by full faith and credit of the issuing government and have low liquidity risk and almost zero credit risk. Since they are the safest form of investment, their yields are typically lower than all other kinds of debt securities of comparable maturities, and is used as a benchmark for evaluating the yields on municipal and corporate debt securities. Treasuries constitute the negotiable debt obligations of a government. Also called treasury securities or (in the UK) gilt edged security (or Gilts).