<\/p>\n
The US banking system\u2019s reserves, a key factor in the Federal Reserve\u2019s decision to keep shrinking its balance sheet, tumbled to the lowest in nearly four months.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Bank reserves fell by about US$209 billion to US$3 trillion in the week through April 30, according to Fed data released on Thursday. That\u2019s the lowest level since Jan 1 and also the largest weekly slide since the start of the year, exceeding the decline seen two weeks ago when US income tax receipts were due.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The drop comes as banks reined in balance-sheet intensive activities like reverse repurchase agreement (RRP) transactions in order to shore up their books for regulatory purposes. That means cash was directed to places like the central bank\u2019s overnight reverse repo facility, draining liquidity from other liabilities on the Fed\u2019s ledger. Usage of the RRP facility swelled by US$79 billion between April 23 and April 30, before falling by US$93 billion on Thursday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the same time, the influx of tax receipts has contributed to the growth in the Treasury General Account, another Fed liability. Balances in April grew by about US$389 billion, ending the month around US$678 billion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The shifts in cash affect the day-to-day operations in the financial system, as the Fed continues unwinding its balance sheet, a process known as quantitative tightening, or QT. The Fed last month slowed the pace by reducing the amount of bond holdings it lets roll off every month.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While Fed chair Jerome Powell alluded to modest tightness in money-market rates, officials in January had discussed the potential need to pause or slow the process until lawmakers could strike a deal on the debt cap. That\u2019s due to the fact that a decline in the cash balance could actually push reserves higher, masking money-market signals officials track to identify when balances are approaching levels considered scarce.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The US banking system\u2019s reserves, a key factor in the Federal Reserve\u2019s decision to keep shrinking its balance sheet, tumbled to the lowest in nearly four months.\u00a0 Bank reserves fell by about US$209 billion to US$3 trillion in the week through April 30, according to Fed data released on Thursday. That\u2019s the lowest level since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bez-rubriki"],"featured_image_src":{"landsacpe":["https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/US-FED-1-1140x445.jpg",1140,445,true],"list":["https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/US-FED-1-463x348.jpg",463,348,true],"medium":["https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/US-FED-1-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"full":["https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/US-FED-1.jpg",2048,1364,false]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3926,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924\/revisions\/3926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/relinvestmentsgroup.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}