Tag Archives: Reserves

Overview: After the making marginal new highs in early North America yesterday, the dollar pulled back, arguable dragged lower by the softness of US rates, helped by the sharp drop in oil prices and healthy reception to the US three-year note auction. However, the greenback has returned better bid today as the market continues to search for direction post-FOMC and US jobs report. The euro and sterling are the weakest of the G10 currencies through the European...

Overview: Surging Covid cases in China and Hong Kong are undermining hopes of a Covid-pivot and the US dollar is broadly higher. Equities are under pressure to start the week. Most of the large bourses in the Asia Pacific but Japan, fell earlier today. Europe’s Stoxx 600 is paring last week’s minor gain, which was the fifth consecutive weekly rise. US stock futures are lower, while the 10-year US Treasury yield is flat near 3.83%. European yields are mostly around...

Overview: Asia Pacific bourses followed yesterday’s US loss, but after opening lower Europe’s Stoxx 600 has steadied. US futures are narrowly mixed ahead of the US jobs report. Benchmark 10-year yields are higher across the board. The US 10-year Treasury yield is near 3.84%, slightly higher on the day. It is up a single basis point on the week. European yields are 3-5 bp higher. The dollar is softer against the G10 currencies, but as we note below, the intraday...

Update January 10, 2021:  Sight Deposits have risen by +1.9 bn CHF, this means that the SNB is intervening and buying Euros and Dollars. We had finally arrived in the inflation scenario I was speaking about before. Inflation is the period, when both the Swiss franc and gold must go up. BUT : U.S. CPI is at 5%, at the highest value since the year 1990 (excluding one outlayer in Summer 2008). But European inflation has gone down to 1.9%., In...

Update September 20 2021: SNB Selling Dollars and Euros Sight Deposits have fallen: The change is -0.2 bn. compared to last week, this means the SNB is selling euros and dollars. We had finally arrived in the inflation scenario I was speaking about before. Inflation is the period, when both the Swiss franc and gold must go up. BUT : U.S. CPI is at 5%, at the highest value since the year 1990 (excluding one outlayer in Summer 2008). But European...

In a CEPR discussion paper, Andreas Fuster, Tan Schelling, and Pascal Towbin analyze how banks respond to changes in the threshold level above which reserves held at the central bank are charged negative interest: … exploiting an unexpected decision by the Swiss National Bank in September 2019 to change the threshold calculation without taking any other policy actions. This change led to a large increase in overall exemptions, but with variation across banks. Using a...

Update March 29 2021: SNB selling euros and dollars Sight Deposits have fallen: The change is -0.2 bn. compared to last week, this means the SNB is selling euros and dollars. Speculative Positioning: Speculators are long CHF against USD. Since March 13, they have shifted to a long EUR position against USD. The following shows the recent developments. Sight Deposits, i.e. SNB interventions FX rates Speculative positions CHF: Since April, speculators...

International Journal of Central Banking. PDF. This paper offers a macroeconomic perspective on the “Reserves for All” (RFA) proposal to let the general public hold electronic central bank money and transact with it. I propose an equivalence result according to which a marginal substitution of outside money (e.g., RFA) for inside money (e.g., deposits) does not affect macroeconomic outcomes. I identify key conditions for equivalence and argue that these conditions likely are...

The spring meetings of the World Bank and IMF will be held virtually this week amid a profound economic crisis spurred by a novel coronavirus. Unlike previous such viruses, this went global in such a destructive way that many countries have responded the same way. Encouraging social distancing, closing non-essential businesses, and enforcing lockdowns. The economic contraction that has begun is beyond what has been seen since the Great Depression. Even before the...

The BIS has issued two reports that assess the implications of unconventional monetary policies. The report prepared by the Committee on the Global Financial System discusses … a number of unconventional monetary policy tools (UMPTs). After a decade of experience with UMPTs the report takes stock of central banks’ experience and draws some lessons for the future. The report focuses on four sets of tools: negative interest rate policies, new central bank lending operations, asset purchase...