The Federal Reserve amassed a (relatively) small amount of corporate bonds and exchange-traded funds via an emergency-lending program set up to combat the pandemic economic impact.
It has announced it'll soon be selling them off, more here:
The amounts, as I said above, are a relatively small part of Fed intervention, circa:
- US$8.5b of ETFs
- US$5n of bonds
I'm reading this as the Federal Reserve slinking ever so slightly towards taper (or at least talking about it!) and I'm sure not to be alone in this take.
- WSJ have more here (may be gated)
- And, Reuters have their report here, ungated: Fed says it will start unwinding its corporate bond holdings
Dallas Fed Head Kaplan has been urging a discussion of taper:
