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5 posts on "Treasury market liquidity"
October 17, 2023

How Has Treasury Market Liquidity Evolved in 2023?

Decorative photo: close up of the words "The Treasury" on the treasury building showing the top of the columns outside the structure.

In a 2022 post, we showed how liquidity conditions in the U.S. Treasury securities market had worsened as supply disruptions, high inflation, and geopolitical conflict increased uncertainty about the expected path of interest rates. In this post, we revisit some commonly used metrics to assess how market liquidity has evolved since. We find that liquidity worsened abruptly in March 2023 after the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, but then quickly improved to levels close to those of the preceding year. As in 2022, liquidity in 2023 continues to closely track the level that would be expected by the path of interest rate volatility.

Posted at 7:00 am in Financial Markets, Treasury | Permalink
November 15, 2022

How Liquid Has the Treasury Market Been in 2022?

Decorative: dollar bills with water ripple over them

Policymakers and market participants are closely watching liquidity conditions in the U.S. Treasury securities market. Such conditions matter because liquidity is crucial to the many important uses of Treasury securities in financial markets. But just how liquid has the market been and how unusual is the liquidity given the higher-than-usual volatility? In this post, we assess the recent evolution of Treasury market liquidity and its relationship with price volatility and find that while the market has been less liquid in 2022, it has not been unusually illiquid after accounting for the high level of volatility.

Posted at 7:00 am in Financial Markets, Liquidity, Treasury | Permalink
September 8, 2022

How Can Safe Asset Markets Be Fragile?

Photo: carton on eggs with one egg cracked

The market for U.S. Treasury securities experienced extreme stress in March 2020, when prices dropped precipitously (yields spiked) over a period of about two weeks. This was highly unusual, as Treasury prices typically increase during times of stress. Using a theoretical model, we show that markets for safe assets can be fragile due to strategic interactions among investors who hold Treasury securities for their liquidity characteristics. Worried about having to sell at potentially worse prices in the future, such investors may sell preemptively, leading to self-fulfilling “market runs” that are similar to traditional bank runs in some respects.

July 1, 2020

How Liquid Is the New 20‑Year Treasury Bond?

Fleming and Ruela take a first look at the U.S. government’s new 20-year bond, using a short sample of available data to describe its trading activity and liquidity.

Posted at 7:00 am in Financial Markets, Pandemic, Treasury | Permalink
June 26, 2015

From the Vault: Gauging Treasury Market Liquidity

A review of recent work on Liberty Street Economics examining liquidity in the U.S. Treasury market

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