Peter's Blog

QT Falls Short Again and the Fed Lost Almost $100B in January

The Fed has a targeted balance sheet reduction of $95B a month. The Fed has failed to meet its target in 7 of the last 8 months with only an $81B reduction in January. The Fed fell woefully short of meeting their $35B MBS target, seeing only $16.7B (less than 50% of the target). The Treasury […]

The Fed has Missed the Balance Sheet Mortgage Back Security Reduction Target Reduction Every Single Month

The Fed has a targeted balance sheet reduction of $95B a month. After reaching and exceeding this target last month, the Fed is back to undershooting. This should not come as a surprise given the turmoil in the bond market this year and the lack of liquidity.

Fed Has $48B Loss in November and Sees Massive Balance Sheet Reduction

The Fed has a targeted balance sheet reduction of $95B a month. Up until this point, the Fed had failed to reach its target almost every month since QT began. In the latest month, the Fed made up for their recent shortfall with a big balance sheet reduction of $139B, exceeding their target by 50%! Despite the larger-than-expected […]

The Fed is Still Coming up Short on QT

The Fed is supposed to be reducing the balance sheet by $95B a month. This is up from $47.5B before September. As the chart below shows, the Fed has only succeeded in meeting or exceeding its goal a single time (August) in 6 months. In the latest month, the Fed came up 25% short with a […]

Surprise! Another Month = Another Failed Attempt at QT

The Fed has found it easier to raise rates than shrink its balance sheet. September was supposed to be the month when the Fed got serious about shrinking the balance sheet. After a few months of warming up with $47.5B monthly reductions, the Fed was going to step up in September and shrink by $95B ($60B in […]

Is the Fed Worried About the Mortgage Market?

Is the Federal Reserve worried about the tanking mortgage and housing market? If their holdings of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) are any indication, the answer is, yes. The Fed has finally started shrinking its overall balance sheet as promised, but they are not shedding MBS according to plan.

Fed Balance Sheet Reduction: Too Little Too Late

Another month in and the Fed is still struggling to implement Quantitative Tightening (QT). According to the plan the Fed outlined last May, the central bank should be shrinking the balance sheet by at least $47.5B a month, spread between $30B in Treasuries and $17.5B in MBS. That’s not happening.

Did the Fed Forget to Start QT?

The first month of Federal Reserve balance sheet reduction turned out to be a big dud. As it turns out, the balance sheet shrank by less than $1 billion in June during the first month of quantitative tightening. As part of its vaunted inflation fight, the Fed announced in May that Quantitative Tightening (QT) was […]

Foreign Holders Join the Fed in Reducing Holdings

Despite rising through the month, the Fed balance ended up shrinking slightly by $25 billion in May, even as it slightly increased its Treasury holdings. This was the first monthly decline in the balance sheet since $220B of “Other” rolled off in July 2020. In that case, “Other” were repurchase agreements with foreign entities to […]

Fed Balance Sheet Creeping Upward Again

The Federal Reserve has talked a lot about fighting inflation. But what has it actually done? In practice, not a lot. It has nudged interest rates up 75 basis points. And while the Fed has ended the massive quantitative easing program that it ran during the pandemic, it pushed balance sheet reduction back from May […]