There was plenty of liquidity on Christmas Eve when the Treasury Secretary called and asked. What changed?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-control-key-rate-may-already-be-at-its-limit
And where we are today...
https://www.alhambrapartners.com/20...ng-out-the-shadow-money-costs-that-do-matter/
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4255850-federal-funds-rate-communicating
Now let’s look at it with yesterday’s figures. FRBNY says that the 25th percentile was 2.43%, meaning that
75% of all federal funds transactions took place at least 3 bps above IOER (currently 2.40%). The 1st percentile was 2.37%, so we can assume that
the vast majority of all lending came with a rate above IOER. It worked out to a weighted average of 2.44%, the published EFF rate.
The 99th percentile was 2.60%, or 20 bps above IOER.
It’s an easy profit. There really is no risk involved here. Though unsecured, the lack of unfamiliar players makes it pretty open. Why keep reserves parked at IOER when you can pocket 5, 10, 20 additional bps? It doesn’t seem to make sense. Players should be falling all over themselves to jump in, which would, again, push the weighted average lower.
Instead, the average keeps on rising over time, and officials are predictably befuddled.
In other words, what this market is saying is that the cost of creating or mobilizing additional liquidity
must be greater than that spread!
As discussed a little while back, this isn’t quite the theory behind the mainstream view of the printing press. Bernanke says for the US government to print money there is no additional cost. But in this system, it isn’t the US government which creates and mobilizes liquidity (effective money supply).
What we are witnessing is how there are, actually, costs to money. We know this simply because we are left asking, once more,
where are the dealers? They are the entities who evaluate and choose to, or choose not to, absorb those costs.
Jeff Snider is a freak and one of top liquidity macro's out there... Good read for sure, basically the Fed is getting exposed for not being in control after all, surprise! They basically have to stop unwinding balance sheet way before September schedule, or cut rates by 25 bps which they won't do until credit collapse, so balance sheet option is likely the one. I would say June they will end balance sheet unwinding, it's pretty clear