Barclays state the Fed might need to halt balance sheet shortening in 2023

According to a Barclays analysis, the Federal Reserve may need to slow down or halt reducing its almost $9 trillion balance sheet earlier than many people currently anticipate.

The current rate of the drawdown is likely to need to alter in the beginning half of next year, the investment company’s analysts noted this week.

That’s because, by the end of 2023, bank reserves would fall to levels that would make it difficult to retain strict control over the fed funds rate, the U.S. central bank’s principal instrument for affecting the course of the economy, if the Fed were to proceed with letting its balance sheet to shrink.

As of yet, Fed officials have only stated that they view the process of reducing assets as a lengthy one with an unknown conclusion.

They have not provided much information regarding how long or how drastically they aim to reduce holdings.

Neel Kashkari, president of the Minneapolis Fed, said on Wednesday that it is unclear what the balance sheet’s final destination would be but that there is still work to be done.

The process’s final condition is challenging for a variety of reasons. The largest question mark, though, is when the economic system will switch from having plenty of bank reserves to having few.

The federal fund objective rate may become unstable due to a lack of reserves, something central bankers do not like. In order to boost reserves once they depleted in September 2019, the Fed had to buy assets and temporarily inject liquidity.

The Barclays report is released as the Fed tightens its position on monetary policy on two fronts.

Officials are rapidly raising their federal funds goal rate range in an effort to reduce inflation, which has reached 40-year highs. These hikes are likely to continue into the following year.

The reduced stimulus has also resulted in the Fed’s balance sheet getting smaller.

The holdings reached a height of about $9 trillion as of the previous spring as a result of stimulus bond-buying measures related to the coronavirus outbreak, up from a capacity of $4.2 trillion in the month of March, 2020.

As of September, the Fed began selling $95 billion worth of its holdings each month, bringing the total amount of its holdings to $8.8 trillion. Bank reserves have been decreasing along with that drop.

Barclays analysis revealed total reserve levels are anticipated to face increased pressure as a result of financial system developments, which indicates that the present amount of bank reserves is likely closer to reserve scarcity than it may have been prior to 2015.

The paper revealed the Fed’s balance sheet would likely shrink by just over $1 trillion next year if it continues on its current course, which implies reserves will start to affect monetary policies before the year is over.

The research said there is a sense that the Fed may achieve “ample” far sooner than expected, in the first half of 2023, as a result of these changes to the form and placement of the curve for bank reserves.

Barclays’ study showed the Fed may adjust the parameters of its rate control tools or take other actions to buy some time before addressing the reserves issue.

But because they only provide short-term relief, the more useful technique is to slow down the balance sheet shrinkage.

All in all, this year has been a really uncertain one, thanks to the historic-highs inflation and other destructive factions.

The Fed has almost successfully managed to get everyone through the conclusion of 2022, but further updates on their decision to wrap up the year are still unclear.