spreads versus comparable maturity U.S. Treasury Bills for the period August 1, 2000 through July 20, 2001. We present the mean, stan- dard deviation, minimum and maximum. Panels a, b and c of Exhibit 4.7 presents a time series plot of 3-month, 6-month, and 1-year yield spreads, respectively for the same time period. Note that the yield spreads spike the last week of December 2000. This phenomenon is due to unwilling- ness of money managers to hold spread product around the calendar turn. Instead, for annual reporting purposes, they increase their holdings of U.S. Treasury bills. Moreover, U.S. Treasury bills that mature at the end of a quarter or at the end of the year trade at a higher price and corre- spondingly offer a lower yield relative to the Treasury bill curve.4   4See, Robin Grieves, Steven V. Mann, Alan J. Marcus, and Pradipkumar Ramanlal, "Riding the Bill Curve," The Journal of Portfolio Management (Spring 1999), pp. 74-82.       FEDERAL HOME LOAN MORTGAGE CORPORATION   The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation ("Freddie Mac") is a GSE chartered by the Congress of the United States in 1970 to improve the liquidity of the secondary mortgage market. Freddie Mac purchases mortgage loans from individual lenders and either sells securities backed by the mortgages to investors or holds the mortgages until maturity. Like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac is similarly charged with providing access to mortgage finance for low-income families and underserved populations. Also like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac is regulated by HUD for its housing mission and by OFHEO for safety/soundness issues. Freddie Mac main- tains a direct line of credit with the U.S. Treasury.   Discount Notes In 2000, Freddie Mac issued $2.076 trillion in discount notes. While at issuance these notes can range in maturity from overnight to 365 days, half of these notes have maturities of three days or less. The most popular maturities are one month and three months. Freddie Mac discount notes are offered for sale continuously with rates posted 24 hours a day (busi- ness days) through a group of investment banks that belong to the Fred- die Mac dealer group. These notes are issued in book entry form through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a minimum face value of $1,000 with increments of $1,000 thereafter. The pricing conventions are the same as U.S. Treasury bills.