Historical 3-Month Treasury Bill Rates (2000-2023) Dataset

Track the Pulse of the Financial Market with Detailed T-Bill Data

Dataset Description

This dataset contains historical 3-month Treasury Bill rates, sourced from Yahoo Finance. The dataset spans from January 3, 2000, to December 31, 2023, and provides daily prices along with adjusted close prices and volumes. This data is crucial for financial analysts, economists, and researchers who are interested in interest rate trends and their impact on the economy.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Data Source
3. Dataset Structure
4. Data Collection and Processing
5. Usage and Applications
6. License
7. Acknowledgements

Introduction

Treasury Bills (T-Bills) are short-term government securities with maturities of one year or less. They are sold at a discount from their face value and do not pay interest before maturity. This dataset specifically focuses on the 3-month T-Bill rates, which are commonly used as a risk-free rate benchmark in various financial models and analyses.

The 3-month T-Bill rate is considered a reliable indicator of short-term interest rates and economic conditions. It is widely used in the valuation of financial instruments, risk management, and macroeconomic analysis.

Data Source

The data was sourced from Yahoo Finance. The Ticker symbol used for the 3-month Treasury Bill rates is ^IRX.

Dataset Structure

The dataset is provided in CSV format with the following columns:

• Date: The date of the recorded interest rate (in YYYY-MM-DD format).
• Open: The opening price of the 3-month T-Bill rate on the given date.
• High: The highest price of the 3-month T-Bill rate on the given date.
• Low: The lowest price of the 3-month T-Bill rate on the given date.
• Close: The closing price of the 3-month T-Bill rate on the given date.
• Adj Close: The adjusted close price for the 3-month T-Bill rate, adjusted for any corporate actions.
• Volume: The trading volume of the 3-month T-Bill rate on the given date (although typically 0 for T-Bills).

Example:

Data Collection and Processing

The data was collected from Yahoo Finance using the Python yfinance library. The following steps were performed to process the data:

1. Data Retrieval: Historical data was fetched for the 3-month Treasury Bill using the yfinance API.
2. Data Cleaning: Missing values were dropped to ensure data consistency.
3. Conversion: The adjusted close prices were used for analysis as they account for any corporate actions.

Usage and Applications

This dataset can be used for various financial analyses and modeling, including but not limited to:

• Interest Rate Modeling: Use the dataset to model interest rate behaviors using stochastic models such as the Vasicek model, Cox-Ingersoll-Ross model, etc.
• Risk Management: Assess the risk-free rate for evaluating investment performance and calculating risk premiums.
• Econometric Analysis: Conduct time series analysis to study trends, seasonality, and economic cycles.
• Financial Education: Serve as a resource for educational purposes in finance and economics courses.
• Macroeconomic Research: Analyze the relationship between short-term interest rates and macroeconomic indicators such as GDP growth, inflation, and employment rates.

License

This dataset is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to use, modify, and distribute the data, provided proper attribution is given.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Yahoo Finance for providing the historical data and the Python community for the yfinance library, which facilitated data retrieval and processing.