Peter’s Blog

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently released two inflation reports highlighting inflation figures for December 2023. Here’s what they showed: 

In a disturbing (but unsurprising) trend, more than 1 out of 4 US consumers are throwing in the towel with defeatist “Doom Spending” sprees — despite already being saddled with crippling levels of debt. This behavior is akin to someone who, feeling overwhelmed, indulges excessively in a habit they know isn’t beneficial. In a similar vein, […]

The Fed managed to reduce its balance sheet by $45 billion last month. The majority of this was in Treasuries of 1-5 year maturities with a reduction of $55B. The next biggest reduction was in mortgage-backed securities MBS totaling $20 billion. This fell short of the target of $35 billion. In fact, the Fed has […]

The Fed reduced its balance sheet by $177 million last month. The majority of this was actually in Treasuries with less than 1-year maturity, totaling $102B. The next biggest reduction was in loans, totaling $40B.

The Fed is still bailing out banks. The Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP) reached a new all-time high in April, suggesting that the banking crisis has not yet passed. And while the aggregate balance sheet looks to be shrinking, the detailed data shows it is more complex than that.

By now it should be common knowledge that the Fed has blown up its balance sheet rather quickly to combat the current banking crisis. As the chart below illustrates, the Fed added a gargantuan sum to its balance sheet in March, netting an increase of $324B.

Over the past several months, Mike Maharrey and I have posted numerous articles that conclude the same way… the Fed is bluffing and when something breaks, they will fold. On every podcast, Mike has walked through exactly why this is inevitable. Back in September, I laid out the math that showed why the Fed would fold and laid […]

The Federal Reserve came close but still fell short of its $95 billion per month balance sheet reduction target through the last full week in February. This means the Fed has fallen short in 8 of the last 9 months. And with rising interest rates coupled with even this modest balance sheet reduction, the Fed […]

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 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.