Note: Holiday Publication Schedule- I’ll be taking a brief break from publishing over the holiday week. I expect to resume publishing on July 6. Enjoy your holidays!
The Fed’s balance sheet continues to grow. But the often repeated figure of $120 billion per month in Fed asset purchases is inaccurate and misleading. The Fed’s balance sheet grew by $198 billion for the 4 weeks ended June 23. The Fed’s total QE purchases for the month of June were $202 billion, including the weekly Treasury purchases, and all the forward MBS purchase contracts that settle in the third week of the month.
I wanted to get this report out before the holiday weekend, and my planned travels over the next two weeks. I’ve been planning the trip and at the same time packing up for my exit from Croatia after residing in this wonderful country for the past 18 months. I apologize for this report being perhaps more disjointed and incoherent than usual. Hopefully, the ideas I want to communicate are clear enough.
The Fed’s balance sheet continues to grow. But the often repeated figure of $120 billion per month in Fed asset purchases is inaccurate and misleading. The Fed’s balance sheet grew by $198 billion for the 4 weeks ended June 23. The Fed’s total QE purchases for the month of June were $202 billion, including the weekly Treasury purchases, and all the forward MBS purchase contracts that settle in the third week of the month.
Other Wall Street observers don’t count everything. They ignore the Fed’s MBS purchases bought to replace those MBS holdings that were prepaid because borrowers paid off their balance either by sale or refinance.
That money comes out sale or refinancing proceeds of individual mortgage borrowers. It has no impact on the financial markets. To replace those prepaid MBS, the Fed buys more MBS from Primary Dealers. The cash the Fed pays to replace those prepaid MBS goes right into the accounts of the dealers. It makes absolutely no difference why the Fed bought the paper. It doesn’t matter if it’s new paper or rollover paper. All $202 billion went into Primary Dealer accounts. Not $120 billion.
Another factor boosting the markets lately is the Treasury’s T-bill paydowns, which I’ve been reporting for you regularly. They totaled $133 billion in June, coming out of the Treasury account on the Fed’s balance, sheet, and mostly going into RRPs. You would think that the markets would have done even better with all this cash flooding in. But most of the paid off T-bills were held by money market funds. They’re not going to put that cash into longer term Treasuries or stocks. They had no place to put the cash, so they sent it off to the Fed for safekeeping, in the Fed’s RRP program, while they wait for T-bill issuance to pick up again.
That will happen, but the question is the timing. The debt ceiling is the wildcard.
This report examines what it means for the stock and bond markets, particularly when we can expect bullish to turn bearish. Click here to download the complete report.
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