draz

billbelemy22, was that the wording, "securities that they already own"? Or was is simply "investment bankers selling govt securities"?

Govts use i bankers to sell securities - i bankers often act as underwriters or middlemen - in these cases they are not necessarily trading them on a secondary market - they are simply in these cases agents for the originator.

In the CFAI text, however, shelf registrations are discussed in the Primary Markets section, so while I don't think the distinction is clear enough in the text or that it was so in the exam, from this context alone I reckon Shelf was (rightly or wrongly) probably wrong.