March 24 (Reuters) - Demand improved for five-year notes in the U.S. Treasury’s $61 billion auction on Wednesday as the market scrutinized the appetite for the latest government debt offerings in the wake of volatile trading. The bid-to-cover ratio, a gauge of demand, was 2.36, which was higher than last month’s 2.24 ratio. The notes were sold at a high yield of 0.850%, which was just slightly above where the debt traded before the sale. Direct bidders took a 16.6% share of the sale. The auction results were “generally a shade better than average across the board,” according to Tom Simons, a money market economist at Jefferies in New York “Given how much supply is coming to the market and how large the auctions are, if the results are close to average then that’s a good thing,” he said. “It shows you the market isn’t struggling with distributing the supply.” The auction followed Tuesday’s $60 billion offering of two-year notes, which drew solid demand. On Thursday, the Treasury will auction $62 billion of seven-year notes. Weak demand in February for debt in that maturity accelerated a selloff in Treasuries and focused market attention on auctions this month.