80% of US debt purchased by the Fed in 2009?!

Quote from Martinghoul:

All sorts of people believe all sorts of things. I believe my eyes and facts. See my previous post regarding the facts of Fed's transparency or lack thereof. Make your own conclusions.

What does my trading have to do with anything? But, generally, I trade using my brain and I think about a variety of factors. I do not know what "assessing a trend" means. In fact, I have yet to see a rigorous definition of "trend".

The Fed has already stopped the program of outright treasury purchases. It's very unlikely that it will resume. The question now is whether it will continue/expand the purchases of Agency MBS. That depends largely on the state of the US housing mkt.

I have already addressed the specific issue of Fed transparency. I am not sure what uprising you might be referring to. If you want to know my general views on the issue, here they are.

The Fed is not the problem. The debt/deficit issues have been created by the politicians that have never bothered to stop and think about the implications of their actions. Demands for transparency and accountability have to be addressed to each new Congress and President. In fact, it boggles the mind how completely cavalier the legislative and executive branch have both been with the fiscal situation. For example, countries like Australia, Norway and Sweden have specific, long-term rules and regulations in place to prevent govts from running amok with the budget. Moreover, they periodically examine the condition of the budget and threats to long-term fiscal sustainability. What does the US govt do? Nothing. In fact, every single new president seems to get elected into office on a platform of yet more tax cuts, deficits be damned. Fix the political process and stop looking for problems at the Fed.


I've never understood all of the hatred towards the FED. It's Congress and POTUS that write and sign the budget.

These are the people to blame for the state of financial distress we find ourselves in.
 
Quote from clacy:

I've never understood all of the hatred towards the FED. It's Congress and POTUS that write and sign the budget.

These are the people to blame for the state of financial distress we find ourselves in.

The Fed is Wall Street. They are one and the same.

There are multiple crises going on right now. One is Federal Spending, which is unavoidable when you have a system where money is created thru debt.

The other crisis is the financial meltdown and the subsequent questionable Fed actions that benefitted those that collapsed the system.

There's a reason for anger at the Fed. It's justified.
 
Quote from Martinghoul:

You mean the Fed claims only $300bn? Also, the last Fed buyback was held on Oct 29th, so it was less than $300bn through Sept 2009.

I hope your "where is the rest" is a rhetorical question, 'cause the answer should be relatively obvious. Who else buys treasuries, other than foreigners and the Fed? In which country did the personal savings rate go up to nearly 5% of disposable income in 2009? In which country are depository institutions/commercial banks being increasingly pushed by regulators to hold more govt securities as a way to improve their capital ratios/liquidity?

How can you say that the numbers don't add up if you haven't even tried adding them up?

I am trying to add them up.

In the last yr (ending 9/30), depository institutions are only holding an extra 50B in securities.
Edit: SIFMA issuance #s are gross. Net issuance was 1.3T

banks-fdic.jpg


So that is 500B from International, 300B from the Fed, 50B from banks. That leaves 450B for local investors, correct?

Got a good resource that shows domestic investors' net holdings of US treasuries q/q ? I recall a while back one government organization putting out something on net assets/holdings, but forget the name of the report right now.

Right now member banks are loaning 1.1B back to the Fed (c/o of the MBS program). Obviously not lending because they aren't incentivized, as the Fed is short circuiting the money multiplier by not 1) penalizing excess reserves and 2) paying interest on reserves loaned back to the Fed.
 
Here is more information on it.

"In 2009 the government issued $1.92 trillion in Notes while redeeming $605 billion, for a net annual issuance of $1.3 trillion. The chart indicates that the three busiest months for the Treasury were November, June and March, when $313 billion, $266 billion and $254 billion, respectively, were issued ($221 billion, $206 billion, and $193 billion net of redemptions). If this patterns will repeat we should expect a substantial ramp up in Note issuance in 2010. In January 2009 only $64 billion in Notes and Bonds was issued: we believe we will likely double this total with the very first 2010 auction alone. In 2009, the average monthly Note issuance was $160 billion gross and $110 billion net: another set of numbers which will easily be surpassed in the coming year.

Finally, the combination of Bills, Notes and Bonds net monthly issuance can be seen on the chart below: 2009 was truly a busy year for Tim Geithner. All in all $1.26 trillion of net new govvies found buyers. Of this, a sizable amount was acquired by the Federal Reserve and Primary Dealers. "

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/trending-us-sovereign-issuance-2009
 
How the hell is the UK still buying so many US Treasuries? They are by far the largest purchasers of USTs from Europe, and fiscally, they are a mess. They even began QE in '09.
 
Quote from Misthos:

How the hell is the UK still buying so many US Treasuries? They are by far the largest purchasers of USTs from Europe, and fiscally, they are a mess. They even began QE in '09.

Investment funds (hedge funds, investment pools, etc) based in London perhaps? So that represents investor demand at least partially, right?
 
Quote from scriabinop23:

Investment funds (hedge funds, investment pools, etc) based in London perhaps? So that represents investor demand.

The UK is broke. They don't have any money to buy anything with.
I think we are giving them the money, sort of like we gave AIG the money to pay off GS and the other thieving Banks.
 
Quote from scriabinop23:

Investment funds (hedge funds, investment pools, etc) based in London perhaps? So that represents investor demand at least partially, right?
Makes sense. I just found this is from Barry Ritholz's blog:

Foreign purchases of long term US assets exploded higher in Nov by $127b, well above expectations of $25b and were led by net purchases of US Treasuries totaling $118b, an all time record high for one month. Buying from the UK, which could have been foreign central banks and/or hedge funds purchasing US debt thru UK based banks, led the way, increasing net purchases by $47.4b. Japan, the 2nd biggest foreign holder, was the 2nd biggest buyer, at $11.4B. The Chinese however were net sellers by $9.3b and their long term holdings are at the lowest since June. Net purchases of GSE bonds rose by $5.9b following net selling of $5.4b in Oct. Selling of corporate bonds totaled $4.6b and foreigners have been net sellers for 7 of the last 8 months but they keep buying US stocks as purchases totaled $9.7b and have been buyers ever since the March low. US investors were net buyers of foreign bonds but sellers of foreign stocks.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/01/foreign-purchases-of-us-treasuries-exploded-higher-in-nov/
 
Quote from jficquette:

The UK is broke. They don't have any money to buy anything with.
I think we are giving them the money, sort of like we gave AIG the money to pay off GS and the other thieving Banks.

I wouldn't discount this either. We live in a world of lies, always have, but we're reaching new heights.

Look at British banks - they're still a mess and were recently downgraded. They're leading this recent charge of UST purchases? I would doubt it.
 
Quote from Misthos:

I wouldn't discount this either. We live in a world of lies, always have, but we're reaching new heights.

Look at British banks - they're still a mess and were recently downgraded. They're leading this recent charge of UST purchases? I would doubt it.
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All we need to do is allocate an increase of 450B domestic treasury holdings.. Lets get the data and reconcile this.
 
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