‘Fragile Liquidity’ in Bond Market Might Threaten Fed’s QT Plans

(Bloomberg) — The unwind of the Federal Reserve’s steadiness sheet is operating at its most capability, although simply how lengthy it may go relies on whether or not international bond markets can proceed to operate with out incident.

Goldman Sachs strategists say any volatility shock will result in additional deterioration in market liquidity, one thing that international central banks are unlikely to tolerate. Provide of liquidity has been poor, they word, with top-of-book market depth in a number of locations near its worst ranges in 5 years.

Bond markets are already beginning to present strains of large dislocation as buying and selling in US Treasuries has skilled a few of the largest swings for the reason that early days of the pandemic, whereas the gilts market has seen the wildest strikes on document. The latest ructions within the UK pressured the Financial institution of England to purchase bonds and take different steps to make sure the market continues to operate. This has ignited issues that the Fed will finally need to prop up the practically $24 trillion Treasury market.

“Each the Fed’s giant scale purchases again in March/April 2020 and the BoE’s current intervention have been primarily to revive orderly functioning, and spotlight the potential for microstructure points to short-circuit a central financial institution’s QT plans,” Goldman Sachs strategists led by Praveen Korapaty wrote in a word to shoppers. “Whereas we don’t anticipate any points with the Fed’s present QT plan within the close to time period, the chances of an accident will seemingly rise as we go deeper into the QT course of.”

Now that the US central financial institution is now not the most important purchaser of Treasuries, it’s unclear who will substitute the Fed as the customer of final resort. International financial officers purged $29 billion in Treasury securities within the week ended Oct. 5, bringing the four-week decline in holdings to $81 billion, in response to Federal Reserve information. It’s the most-extreme outflow since March 2020, leaving complete holdings at $2.91 trillion. On the identical time, giant industrial banks within the US are already shrinking their securities portfolio, versus final 12 months after they have been nonetheless shopping for.

Story continues

Coverage makers imagine markets are working successfully, citing the Fed’s myriad of instruments that would function a liquidity backstop throughout occasions of monetary stress, reminiscent of central financial institution liquidity swap strains and the home and international repurchase settlement amenities.

Nonetheless, Goldman’s strategists have famous that whereas the Fed’s repo amenities present different technique of market intermediation and elevating liquidity, they “aren’t excellent substitutes for danger switch capability.”

Extra tales like this can be found on bloomberg.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.