Data To Check Regularly

Current H.3: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h....

Historical Data H.3: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h....

Slosh*: http://www.gmtfo.com/reporeader/OMOps.as.... *Remember you can toggle on and off the TIO and TAF; Also, the data has not 'stabilised' until after 11:30 am EST. Any reading prior to this time is invalid information.

Federal Funds Rate Data: http://www.ny.frb.org/markets/omo/dmm/fe....

Commercial Paper Outstanding: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/c....

FRED Graphs:

Non-Borrowed Reserves of Depository Institutions*: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/ser.... *This one appears to be on hold ever since they removed the TAF borrowings and altered it. No updates have been made since they eliminated December 07 and January 08. But probably something to watch. Appears to be being updated now 03-04-08

Net Free or Borrowed Reserves of Depository Institutions*: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/ser.... *Another one that was redacted by the Fed to disinclude the TAF data. They appear to be updating this one though. You can compare it to the original version: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/ser....

Total Borrowings of Depository Institutions: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/ser....

Term Auction Facility (TAF) Data: http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypo....

Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF) Data: http://www.newyorkfed.org/markets/tslf.h....

General Information

FOMC: http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypo....

Federal Reserve Publications: http://research.stlouisfed.org/publicati....

U$D Chart
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=DX-Y.NYB....

Thanks!

Woohoo!!

GAO chief quits! Party hearty!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con....

****!!! Walker was the last and only trustworthy Government employee left. They'll probably replace him with some knucklehead who's willing to sign off on our hopeless financials. GAAAAHHHH!

Damn Steph!

Awesome work!

Hey Steph?

Could you include a link to the US dollar index as well? Or is that a bad idea...

Added.

Some Updated Charts - 03-04-08

Total Borrowings from Financial Institutions: http://bp2.blogger.com/_FiNhXIv5StE/R81W....

Non-Borrowed Reserves of Depository Institutions: http://bp3.blogger.com/_FiNhXIv5StE/R81W....

Steph, or anyone, do you guys know of any good books or resources on how the Fed & the banking system work?

Wish I did, Fbg. I didn't know any of this stuff until I met NoThing.

However, the Federal Reserve website itself has a LOT of information there. They have a lot of stuff there geared for students and I have found it pretty informative.

Thanks!! this this is GREAT post I was wondering where KL was getting Information
he show and talks about I only discovered The Market Ticker In the last month.
Thanks again

Here's another link for the collection: a Fed Funds Futures chart.
http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/Pol....

Data Download Program

https://www.federalreserve.gov/datadownl....

Dr. T's EconLinks.com

http://econlinks.com/

Pika, do you know of any sources clearly explaining the relationship b/t the Fed and the Treasury? I'm still not clear on how paper money and Treasuries are created, and how they end up where they end up. I searched all over Treasury.gov and its linked sites today, but couldn't find anything clearly explaining it.

Here's a passage from my not-yet-published book "Economics for My Children"

Quote:

Whenever the government needs money, it arranges a sale of government debt. (Remember, “selling debt” means “borrowing money”.) Lately this happens every week. The government wants dollars it does not have, so it creates bonds. The people who buy the bonds pay for them, and they expect to be paid back on the date the bonds “mature”. In addition, they are paid interest on their bond every six months. This is exactly like the example I gave you earlier about selling a $50 bond for $46 plus interest.

Now, the way these Treasury bonds are sold is a little unusual. Rather than selling them directly to people who want to buy them, the Department of the Treasury employs a third party to conduct the sale - the Federal Reserve, (or the “Fed” as it is more commonly known). The Fed is a private bank that has been authorized by Congress to create money. Any time the government wants to sell bonds, they just call up the Fed and say “print some more money”. The Fed prints as much money as it needs to buy the bonds from the government, then it turns around and conducts an auction to sell the government bonds.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is the place where the auction of bonds is conducted. Anyone who wants to buy these bonds can bid on them. Whoever bids the most is the winning bidder. For instance, you might say that you are willing to pay $9500 for a $10,000 bond due to be paid back to you in a year. (Yes, the Federal Reserve gets to keep the profits from the sale, but that is a different problem we won’t address now.)

Thx, and good idea for a book.

That's what I thought was the process, but just couldn't find it confirmed anywhere on the Fed or Treasury's websites. Might have missed it, or it was buried deeper than I looked, dunno. Where did find it?

Jeheald,

Are you sure the Fed prints as much money as it wants? Based on everything I have read (mostly on this site), I didn't think the Fed had the power to print money.

Don't confuse the act of creating the money, (via a printing press or electronic digits), with the act of injecting that new money into the economy.

The Fed COULD create as much money as it wanted, but remember that they PAY for the new government debt with the new money, then sell the government debt on the open market. They don't just directly inject the money into the economy. New money gets into the economy through the Dept of the Treasury.

The cycle is:

1. Government needs more money
2. Government creates bonds and tells the Fed to create enough money to buy the bonds.
3. Fed creates the money and buys the government bonds with the new money
4. Government takes the money and Does Its Thing
5. Fed sells government bonds on the open market.

This might seem like the Fed is creating massive inflows of money into their accounts, but that is not ALL that happens. The Fed makes an attempt to keep inflows and outflows roughly even by buying back bonds.

Jehead, I'm afraid that's not right. If you were right, the Fed would have bonds on its balance sheet to equal the entire U.S. Debt. Step 3 is something that the Fed does to create our cash money supply but that's essentially independent of U.S. national debt. Step 5 is conducted by the U.S. Treasury via auctions involving 20-some primary dealers who "are authorized and obligated to submit competitive tenders at Treasury auctions." These Dealers can then hold, resell, or trade the securities with other firms.

Separately, the Fed issues our printed money (Federal Reserve Notes), with which it buys bonds (normally, U.S. Treasuries). This "backed by Treasuries" is what gives the printed money its value - the Federal Government, through the Treasury bonds in the Fed's reserve, stands behind the paper money. There used to be gold where those Treasuries now lie... Making things worse, right now about 1/2 of the Treasuries at the Federal Reserve have been lent out via the TAF, TSLF, etc. and thus our printed money is not fully backed. Genesis has hit on this a few times.

When the government wants to take on more debt, and the Treasury auctions the bonds on the open bond market, the quality of the auction is determined by the "bid to cover ratio" (dollar value of bids submitted vs. the size of the bond issuance) and the "stop out rate" (the highest rate, at which all the bids are filled). The credit to buy the bonds comes from anywhere, including other nations with accounts at U.S. banks, and not (necessarily) the Fed. However, much of the foreign-owned Treasuries are held in custody by the Fed and can be seen as off-balance-sheet items in the Fed's money reports (H.4.1, see http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h....).

I would bet that nobody actually buys bonds with real (physical) money anymore; electronic money (credit) is much easier.

You can buy these bonds yourself at TreasuryDirect, right? And a good idea, too, if you have any worries (as many of us do) about the solvency / future of the regular banks and brokerages.

Are there any limitations on the Fed's ability to print money to buy Treasuries, other than their mandate for price stability/low inflation?

Thanks for the update, Wisdom-seeker!

On October 20, 2008, the Federal Reserve will offer $150 billion in 28-day credit through its Term Auction Facility TODAY http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents....

"Are there any limitations on the Fed's ability to print money to buy Treasuries, other than their mandate for price stability/low inflation? "

Other than the bond traders?

No.

If anyone wants a good analysis of the Fed's operations you can read Murray Rothbard's work The Case Against the Fed. You can download a pdf here:

http://mises.org/books/fed.pdf

I found an easier to digest summary of the Fed's operations and stock ownership:

http://www.nolanchart.com/article5489.ht....

http://www.nolanchart.com/article5976.ht....