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By Krishna Guha in Washington and Michael Mackenzie in New York
Published: September 23 2009 23:41 | Last updated: September 23 2009 23:51
By Krishna Guha in Washington and Michael Mackenzie in New York
Published: September 23 2009 23:41 | Last updated: September 23 2009 23:51
The Federal Reserve is looking to team up with the money-market mutual fund industry as part of its strategy to ensure that its unconventional policies to stimulate the economy do not produce a bout of post-crisis inflation.
The central bank envisages eventually draining liquidity from the financial system by engaging in trades called “reverse repos” with the deep-pocketed money-market funds. In these, the Fed would pledge mortgage-backed securities and Treasuries acquired during the crisis as collateral for short-term loans from the funds.
[..]
The obvious counterparties for reverse repo deals are the Wall Street primary dealers. However, the Fed thinks they would only have balance sheet capacity to refinance about $100bn of assets. By contrast, the money-market funds have $2,500bn in assets, which means they could plausibly refinance as much as $500bn in Fed assets. Officials think there would be appetite on the part of the funds, which are under pressure from regulators and investors to stick to low-risk liquid investments.
During the crisis, the Fed created roughly $800bn of additional bank reserves to finance asset purchases and loans. This total is likely to rise in the coming months as the central bank completes its asset purchases and the Treasury unwinds financing it provided to the Fed. Fed officials think they could raise interest rates even with this excess supply of reserves by offering to pay banks to deposit their surplus funds with it rather than lend them out. However, they also want to use reverse repos in tandem to soak up some of the excess reserves. Policymakers call this a “belt and braces approach”.
The central bank envisages eventually draining liquidity from the financial system by engaging in trades called “reverse repos” with the deep-pocketed money-market funds. In these, the Fed would pledge mortgage-backed securities and Treasuries acquired during the crisis as collateral for short-term loans from the funds.
[..]
The obvious counterparties for reverse repo deals are the Wall Street primary dealers. However, the Fed thinks they would only have balance sheet capacity to refinance about $100bn of assets. By contrast, the money-market funds have $2,500bn in assets, which means they could plausibly refinance as much as $500bn in Fed assets. Officials think there would be appetite on the part of the funds, which are under pressure from regulators and investors to stick to low-risk liquid investments.
During the crisis, the Fed created roughly $800bn of additional bank reserves to finance asset purchases and loans. This total is likely to rise in the coming months as the central bank completes its asset purchases and the Treasury unwinds financing it provided to the Fed. Fed officials think they could raise interest rates even with this excess supply of reserves by offering to pay banks to deposit their surplus funds with it rather than lend them out. However, they also want to use reverse repos in tandem to soak up some of the excess reserves. Policymakers call this a “belt and braces approach”.
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