The stronger dollar also encouraged buying, traders said.

Treasury prices slipped yesterday after an auction of new 10-year Treasury notes failed to encourage buying.

Analysts said this rise may have encouraged foreign buying.

One popular recent approach has been to allow businesses to accelerate the depreciation of their investments, a tax incentive that encouraged buying of certain items.

Economic data to be released today were expected to encourage buying.

Hopes that such a meeting was imminent had helped stabilize the value of the dollar last week, and encouraged foreign buying at the Treasury's auctions.

To encourage buying, online retailers dangled the same kind of incentives used in their stores.

The economic reports encouraged heavy buying, traders said.

The system encouraged heavy buying last year, market experts say, by lulling investors into believing their holdings were loss-proof.

Many aspects of the Internet encourage impulsive or compulsive buying.