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Interest rate volatility contributed to higher mortgage rates in 2022
The Federal Reserve aggressively tightened monetary policy in 2022, responding to high and persistent inflation. The resulting borrowing cost increase for households and firms was generally anticipated. However, fixed-rate mortgage interest rates were especially sensitive to the policy regime change.
Commodity Financing Markets Shaken by Russian Invasion; Monitoring for U.S. Financial Stress
While volatility in commodity markets is not unusual, rapid and correlated price increases across many different types of commodities at once is much rarer.
Discussion Paper
The Cleared Bilateral Repo Market and Proposed Repo Benchmark Rates
As described in a recent statement and blog post, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), in cooperation with the Office of Financial Research (OFR), is considering the publication of several new benchmark rates for overnight Treasury general collateral repurchase agreement (repo) transactions in order to enhance market transparency and efficiency by improving the quality and breadth of repo market information available to the public. This note sheds light on another important segment of the overnight repo market – the segment of the bilateral repo market cleared by FICC – based on ...
What drives mortgage rates and their response to monetary policy changes
Mortgage rates are an important channel for monetary policy pass-through. However, this channel is complex.
Network structure of money markets and firms affects policy transmission
Understanding the underlying network structure of money markets provides valuable insights for monitoring reserve scarcity and its evolution in response to regulatory and market changes.
How sensitive is the Treasury cash-futures basis trade to funding condition shifts?
The Treasury cash-futures basis trade, a very large, leveraged Treasury trade, has drawn scrutiny because unwinding positions amplified stress during the pandemic-era market shock of March 2020. With estimates suggesting the trade has since grown larger, attention is focused on how well it might weather future shocks.
Rising hedge fund leverage affects monetary policy implementation
The structure of the Treasury and repurchase agreement (repo) markets has changed over the past decade in ways that alter how administered rates pass through to market rates.
Domestic banks are inelastic providers of marginal funding to repo markets
As system liquidity declines and rates of return rise, new types of participants enter repo markets as lenders, although some may not be able to reliably deploy cash in the early morning when markets are most active. The short tenor and early-morning timing of most private market repo transactions make domestic banks especially inelastic lenders in response to unanticipated demands for lending
Discussion Paper
How Competitive are U.S. Treasury Repo Markets?
The Treasury repo market is at the center of the U.S. financial system, serving as a source of secured funding as well as providing liquidity for Treasuries in the secondary market. Recently, results published by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) raised concerns that the repo market may be dominated by as few as four banks. In this post, we show that the secured funding portion of the repo market is competitive by demonstrating that trading is not concentrated overall and explaining how the pricing of inter-dealer repo trades is available to a wide range of market participants. By ...