{"id":40080,"date":"2018-11-02T13:57:35","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T18:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=40080"},"modified":"2018-11-02T13:57:35","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T18:57:35","slug":"the-feds-qe-unwind-hits-321-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=40080","title":{"rendered":"The Fed\u2019s QE Unwind Hits $321 Billion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Fed\u2019s QE Unwind Hits $321 Billion<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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The \u201cup to\u201d exacts its pound of flesh.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the four-week period from October 3 through October 31, the Federal Reserve shed $35 billion in assets, according to the Fed\u2019s weekly balance sheet<\/a> released Thursday afternoon. This brought the balance sheet to $4,140 billion, the lowest since February 12, 2014. Since October 2017, when the Fed began its QE unwind, or \u201cbalance sheet normalization,\u201d it has now shed $321 billion:<\/p>\n

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The Fed acquired Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) as part of QE, which ended in 2014. Between the end of QE and the beginning of the QE Unwind in October 2017, the Fed replaced maturing securities with new securities to keep their levels roughly the same. In October last year, the Fed kicked off the QE unwind and began shedding those securities. But the balance sheet also reflects the Fed\u2019s other activities, and the amount of its total assets is always higher than the sum of Treasury securities and MBS it holds.<\/p>\n

October was a new milestone: the QE unwind left the ramp-up phase and entered the cruising-speed phase, according to the Fed\u2019s plan. In the cruising-speed phase, the Fed is scheduled to shed \u201cup to\u201d $30 billion in Treasuries and \u201cup to\u201d $20 billion in MBS a month, for a total of \u201cup to\u201d $50 billion a month.<\/p>\n

From October 3 through October 31, the Fed\u2019s holdings of Treasury Securities fell by $23.8 billion to $2,270 billion, the lowest since February 19, 2014. Since the beginning of the QE-Unwind, the Fed has shed $195 billion in Treasuries:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The \u201cup to\u201d exacts its pound of flesh<\/strong><\/p>\n

The plan calls for shedding \u201cup to\u201d $30 billion in Treasury securities in October. But the Fed shed only $23.8 billion. Why?<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fed\u2019s QE Unwind Hits $321 Billion The \u201cup to\u201d exacts its pound of flesh. Over the four-week period from October 3 through October 31, the Federal Reserve shed $35 billion in assets, according to the Fed\u2019s weekly balance sheet released Thursday afternoon. This brought the balance sheet to $4,140 billion, the lowest since February […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[303,22755,7925,7926,661,662,22756,3650,4254,4255],"class_list":["post-40080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-fed","tag-fed-assets","tag-mbs","tag-mortgage-backed-securities","tag-qe","tag-quantitative-easing","tag-treasury-securities","tag-us-federal-reserve","tag-wolf-richter","tag-wolfstreet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40081,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40080\/revisions\/40081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}