QE is Back, Why?When he said, 'cease the balance sheet runoff,' it means the Fed plans to keep its balance sheet stable — basically, to stop their balance sheet from shrinking any further under quantitative tightening. But that doesn’t mean they’re starting quantitative easing again.
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FOMC conference transcript on 29 Oct 25 pertaining to Fed's balance sheet:
"We also decided to conclude the reduction of our aggregate securities holdings as of December 1.
At today’s meeting, the Committee also decided to conclude the reduction of our aggregate securities holdings as of December 1. Our long-stated plan has been to stop balance sheet runoff when reserves are somewhat above the level we judge consistent with ample reserve conditions. Signs have clearly emerged that we have reached that standard. In money markets, repo rates have moved up relative to our administered rates, and we have seen more notable pressures on selected dates along with more use of our standing repo facility. In addition, the effective federal funds rate has begun to move up relative to the rate of interest on reserve balances. These developments are what we expected to see as the size of our balance sheet declined and warrant today’s decision to cease runoff.
Over the 3-1/2 years that we have been shrinking our balance sheet, our securities holdings have declined by $2.2 trillion. As a share of nominal GDP, our balance sheet has fallen from 35 percent to about 21 percent. In December, we will enter the next phase of our normalization plans by holding the size of our balance sheet steady for a time while reserve balances continue to move gradually lower as other non-reserve liabilities such as currency keep growing. We will continue to allow agency securities to run off our balance sheet and will reinvest the proceeds from those securities in Treasury bills, furthering progress toward a portfolio consisting primarily of Treasury securities. This reinvestment strategy will also help move the weighted average maturity of our portfolio closer to that of the outstanding stock of Treasury securities, thus furthering the normalization of the composition of our balance sheet.
CLAIRE JONES. Can I just ask you a quick follow-up on QT? How much of the fund impressions we've seen in money markets are related to the U.S. Treasury issuing more shortterm debt?
CHAIR POWELL. That could be one of the factors, but the reality is that we've seen --the things that we've seen, higher repo rates in the federal funds rate moving up, these are the very things that we -- that we look for. We actually have a framework for looking at the place we're trying to reach. What we said for a long time now is that when we feel like we're a little bit, or a bit above what we consider a level that's ample, that we would freeze the size of the balance sheet. Of course reserves will continue to decline from that point forward, as non-reserve liabilities grow. So this happened, some of it -- some things have been happening for some time now, showing a gradual tightening in money market conditions, really in the last, call it three weeks or so, you've seen more significant tightening, and I think a clear assessment that we're at that place. The other thing is, we're -- the balance sheet is shrinking at a very, very slow pace now. We've reduced it by half twice, and so there's not a lot of benefit to be, to be holding on for it to get the last few dollars, because again, when the balance sheet -- reserves are going to continue to shrink as non-reserves grow. So there was support on the Committee, as we thought about it, to go ahead with this and announce effective December 1 that we will be freezing the size of the balance sheet. And the December 1 date gives the markets a little bit of time to adapt.
STEVE LIESMAN. Just a follow-up on the balance sheet, if you stop it, the runoff now, does that mean you have to go back to actually adding assets sometime next year so that the balance sheet doesn't shrink as a percent of GDP and become a tightening factor?
CHAIR POWELL. So, you're right, the place we'll be on December 1 is that the size of the balance sheet is frozen, and as mortgage-backed securities mature, we'll reinvest those in treasury bills, which will foster both a more treasury balance sheet, and also a shorter duration.
So that's -- in the meantime, if you freeze the size of the balance sheet, the non-reserve liabilities, currency for example, they're going to continue to grow organically and because the size of the balance sheet is frozen, you have further shrinkage in reserves. And reserves is the thing that we're -- that we're managing that has to be ample. So, that'll happen for a time, but not a tremendously long time. We don't know exactly how long, but at a certain point, you'll want to start -- you'll want to start reserves to start gradually growing to keep up with the size of the banking system and the size of the economy. So we'll be adding reserves at a certain point, and that's the last point. Even then we'll be -- we didn't make decisions about this today, but we did talk today about the composition of the balance sheet. And there's a desire that the balance sheet be -- right now it's got a lot more duration than the outstanding universe of treasury securities and we want to move to a place where we're closer to that duration. That'll take some time. We haven't made a decision about the ultimate endpoint, but we all agree that we want to move more in the direction of a balance sheet that more closely reflects the outstanding treasuries. And that means a shorter duration balance sheet. Now, this is something that's going to be -- take a long time and move very, very gradually and I don't think you'll notice it in market conditions. But that's the direction of things.
