How large is the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet?
When you count in ‘billions’ and it still goes to four digits, it’s very big. Here’s a chart from Bloomberg:
US Federal Reserve QE balance sheet
Even with the taper, the Fed will tack on about another $145 billion through year-end. That will bring the final tally to just over $4 trillion.
At present the Fed has no plans to stop re-investing when its bonds expire so that tally won’t meaningfully shrink for years.