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Monetary Policy
7 articles
Articles
- PerspectiveMacroeconomics & Markets
The deficit was widest in 2020 and the policy rate at its floor in 2021, while both construction series made their largest single-year move in 2023
The M2 money stock added 2.84 trillion dollars between the 2020 and 2021 observations while construction spending on manufacturing plant added seven billion; plant spending's largest step, 77 billion, arrives in 2023. Nothing in these files records a decision, so the sequence is a pattern in the statistics and not evidence of how anyone chose.
- ÉclairageEconomic Security
Two thirds of the M2 increase since 2020 arrived in a single year
The money stock is 4.26 trillion dollars larger than in 2020. Of that, 2.84 trillion came between 2020 and 2021, and the four years since have added half as much again, including the only contraction in the window.
- ÉclairageEconomic Security
The policy rate has given back less than a fifth of its climb
On annual averages the federal funds rate rose 5.06 percentage points from its 2021 low to its 2024 peak, then fell 0.93. Everything priced against the policy rate is still being priced against most of the increase.
- ÉclairageHousing & Urban Development
Two years of decline have taken the mortgage rate 0.21 points off its peak
The thirty-year fixed rate peaked at 6.81 per cent in 2023, and the two annual readings since are 6.72 and 6.6. The federal funds rate ended those same two years 0.81 points lower, nearly four times as far, though it rose before it fell.
- ÉclairageMacroeconomics & Markets
The dollar index gained 7.6 points in one year and 2.0 in the three that followed
The broad index fell to 113.1 in 2021, rose to 120.7 in 2022, and has since read 120.3, 122.9 and 122.7. Each annual point is the average of that year's observations, so a flat line between two years does not establish a quiet year inside either of them.
- DécryptageGeoeconomics
What a central bank currency swap line does
A swap line is a reciprocal credit between two central banks with a reversal date built into it. By the end of this you will know how the chain of exposure runs, why the facility is priced to be unattractive, and why the announced size is rarely the number that matters.
- ÉclairageHousing & Urban Development
Housing units authorised by permit fell in every year after 2021 and are now below their 2020 reading
The series peaked at a monthly average of 1734 thousand units in 2021 and has come down in each of the four years since, to 1431 in 2025. The thirty-year mortgage rate reached its own high in 2023 and has eased in the two years since, and authorisations fell in both of them.