The Federal Reserve has a "plumbing problem"

The US Federal Reserve has started purchasing Treasury bonds with printed money to clear short-term blockages in the financial system.

US Federal Reserve building © iStockphotos

The US Federal Reserve is printing money again
(Image credit: US Federal Reserve building © iStockphotos)

The US Federal Reserve has started purchasing Treasury bonds with printed money. But don't call it quantitative easing (QE), says Jeanna Smialek in The New York Times. It will buy $60bn of short-dated debt a month.

It doesn't help that the Fed tries to control the size of its balance sheet rather than letting it be determined by market demand for cash. The key point for investors is that while full-on QE is intended to ease lending conditions and stimulate the economy, the latest measures have a far more limited objective: to clear short-term blockages in the financial system.

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The Fed had to act, says Matt Egan on CNN. Sustained pressure in repo markets could cause it to lose control of short-term borrowing rates altogether "a problem because that's precisely how the Fed influences the economy". Officials say the new purchases are just a matter of fixing the plumbing. That is probably true. "But as many homeowners know, even plumbing problems can turn into bigger ones."

Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.