The New York Fed's Primary Dealers, Liquidity, Monetary Policy, Excess Reserves and Financial Dreadnoughts in Times of Currency War

Someone asked me about Primary Dealers today.   I think it was in regard to liquidity concerns.

Cutting to the punchline, however one wishes to characterize and attribute it, the financial system is once again over-leveraged, over-concentrated, fraught with interconnected with counterparty risk, and fragile.

This is because of the policy failure of the Treasury and the Fed which could be characterized as extend and pretend without engaging in significant reforms and law enforcement in the aftermath of what might be best described as a control fraud. 

I also postulated years ago that when push came to shove, the Fed would gather around itself a few 'friendly banks' which would act on its behalf in private to enforce certain policy decisions in markets in which the Fed and Treasury do not wish to openly operate.  

It is hard to think of any other somewhat moral reason for the government to babysit and subsidize these very expensive and dangerous TBTF monstrosities, except as instruments of policy to provide some degree of freedom to shape events and responses. 

If you want to wage a currency war, you need to have some dreadnoughts packing serious financial throw-weight, and economic muscle.  Think of economic hitmen on steroids.   It may be Machiavellian,  counter-democratic, and expensive, but that is the dictate of strategy if you want to control things and wield power to do what you will, both at home and abroad. 

Is a corollary to the currency war a financial arms race and the construction of institutional behemoths?  I think it might be.  Or it could just be widespread ignorance and corruption amongst the ruling class which certainly is conceivable.  Or some of both.  Why do governments sometimes engage in corporatism?  Take your pick.

So putting that bit of editorial fuss and postulating out of the way, let's talk about some loosely related details of what Primary Dealers are all about.

The Fed uses Primary Dealers to manage monetary policy and its market in Treasury transactions,  first and foremost.   

These operations are both 'temporary' and 'permanent' transactions involving Treasuries, involving repos/reverse repos and purchases/sales respectively. 

I cannot stress enough that in a period of ZIRP, some things are not quite the same and do not carry the same significance as they might imply in 'normal times.'   I think the last chart show the Fed's Adjusted Monetary Base and Excess Reserves helps to illustrate this.

Although the analogy is a bit strained and far from perfect, I think what Bernanke has been doing with the Fed's monetary base and the excess reserves is roughly comparable to what had been done in 1933 with the removal from gold from private hands, and it revaluation afterwards in order to re-capitalize the banks with what was essentially seignorage.

They used gold instead of a platinum coin.  There is no need to confiscate gold when you are not on an external standard, the only constraint being the Fed's willingness to expand its balance sheet, and of course, the value at market of the bond and the dollar, which some conveniently forget when it suits them.

And the 'platinum coin' was a political rather than a monetary play. It is important to keep the two separate, although both are dysfunctional these days. Corruption ranges far and wide.

Certainly Bernanke and Paulsen/Geithner have been much less selective in spreading the wealth to banks, and never engaged in the sort of reforms and bank holiday that the FDR Administration had done.

The management of liquidity in the banking system with particular member banks, non-banks, and foreign entities is not relevant to the Primary Dealers list per se.

I am not sure why they wanted to know this, but since it has been some time I have written about them,  here is a current list of the Primary Dealers from the NY Fed.

"Primary dealers serve as trading counterparties of the New York Fed in its implementation of monetary policy.

This role includes the obligations to:

(i) participate consistently in open market operations to carry out U.S. monetary policy pursuant to the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC); and

(ii) provide the New York Fed's trading desk with market information and analysis helpful in the formulation and implementation of monetary policy.

Primary dealers are also required to participate in all auctions of U.S. government debt and to make reasonable markets for the New York Fed when it transacts on behalf of its foreign official account holders."

Here is some additional information about the nature of the Primary Dealer relationship with the NY Fed.

As one can easily see not all banks, including member banks of the Federal Reserve, and not only banks, are primary dealers.  For example, MF Global was removed from this list in October, 2011.

An institution is not required to be a Primary Dealer to borrow funds from the Fed's various lending facilities including the Discount Window. 

And being a Primary Dealer, or a member bank of the Federal Reserve for that matter, does not oblige a Bank to engage in money laundering or rigging LIBOR, or any other markets. That sort of activity is largely engaged at the discretion of the Bank.

There is a distinction therefore, between the management of monetary policy and the Treasury sales, and the Fed's other operations with banks including reserves, excess reserves, and discount lending among other things.  So one has to have some care about drawing broader conclusion from their activities.

With the advent of ZIRP, the role of excess reserves held at the Fed, and the payment of interest by the Fed to the banks on those reserves, has taken on an added importance in the management of monetary policy and system liquidity. 

In regard to foreign dollar transactions, the Fed typically arranges swap lines with foreign central banks,  as they did in the case of the dollar short squeeze we had seen in Europe for example.

At one time I kept detailed spreadsheets of most of the Fed's weekly operations.  I gave that up around the time of the financial crisis, when the Fed's activities became much more convoluted and even less transparent than they already had been.


Current List of Primary Dealers

Bank of Nova Scotia, New York Agency
BMO Capital Markets Corp.
BNP Paribas Securities Corp.
Barclays Capital Inc.
Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.
Citigroup Global Markets Inc.
Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC
Daiwa Capital Markets America Inc.
Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
HSBC Securities (USA) Inc.
Jefferies & Company, Inc.
J.P. Morgan Securities LLC
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated
Mizuho Securities USA Inc.
Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC
Nomura Securities International, Inc.
RBC Capital Markets, LLC
RBS Securities Inc.
SG Americas Securities, LLC
UBS Securities LLC.

Federal Reserve Is Intervening in the Currency Markets While Wall Street Whines about Reform

I think we all already knew this, but I wanted to bookmark it on my site for some future occasion when the government and the Fed deny it, probably in a response to a question from Ron Paul.

The question I have in my mind is where does this show up on their books, and what other markets are they active in?

It also seems a bit ironic, since the current topic of discussion on Bloomberg TV is "investor trust in freefall?" The consensus of the talking heads is that Wall Street's holy men are under attack by evil governments, particularly those of the European persuasion, and the odd US regulatory agency.

Steve Wynn is gushing about the business friendly, stable atmosphere in the People's Republic of China, as opposed to the US and those anti-business fascists in Washington. Although it is funny that he thinks the place in the US that most closely resembles China for being 'business friendly' is Massachusetts because they are willing to give him tax guarantees for 15 years. I suppose that when you turn them upside down all corrupt oligarchies look alike.

In an email this morning my friend Janet T. dropped me a note about Vietnam's new bank friendly atmosphere, and wondered aloud if Jamie Dimon would take his operations to Ho Chi Minh City in the unlikely event that meaningful financial reform is passed in the US.

One can only hope. Should we take up a collection for airfare? I would love to see the terms of their bailout packages over there after the next financial crisis, which is sure to come. A water hose, bare steel bedsprings, copper jacketed ben wa balls, and a well charged car battery would probably serve for openers, instead of softball questions and false protests of indignation from Barney, Chris, and the boys which is what those meanies in the Congress frighten them with now.

German Econ Minister:
U.S. Fed Is Also Active In Currency Markets
By Roman Kessler

MAINZ, Germany -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Federal Reserve is also active in currency markets, German Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle said Friday.

His comments come on the heels of remarks made by his Swiss counterpart who said that the Swiss National Bank purchased euros to buttress the single currency.

"It is a regular procedure of central banks," to intervene in currency markets, Bruederle said. "It is not a secret," that central banks have a foreign exchange rate target, he added.

Bruederle said "eruptive" movements have to be avoided. He previously said that China holds 25 percent of its foreign exchange reserves in euros.

-By Roman Kessler, Dow Jones Newswires, +49 69 2972 5514;

roman.kessler@dowjones.com

Read more: NASDAQ

Much Ado About TED, LIBOR, and Currency Swaps

There is some alarm being expressed about the recent increase in the TED spread from some quarters this week.

Here is a short term chart of the TED. It is definitely elevated expressing the accelerated demand for dollars in Europe. Although the BIS reports will not catch up with this action for quite a while, I suspect we are seeing a replay of a flight away from dodgy assets such as dollar denominated CDO's that European customers had deposited with their banks that are now being liquidated again. Also, and undeniably, there is a flight to gold, Swiss francs, and US dollars from the Euro as the ECB and the EMU sort out their serious issues brought about by a single currency and monetary policy working across a wide diversity of localized fiscal conditions.



However, here is the longer term picture of the TED spread. As you can see, it is a bit too early to hit the warning sirens. But it does bear watching.



The long view is not very dramatic, and also not as useful for promoting short euro hedge fund trades, or for generating viewer clicks.

For some additional perspective, here is a chart of the one year LIBOR rate.



Here is a short term view of LIBOR in US Dollars. It is definitely elevated.



But here is a similar short term view of LIBOR expressed in ECU's. By comparing the two LIBOR charts one might think that there is an elevated demand for dollars, probably attributable to a flight to safety. The DX chart indicates that it seems to be peaking. But it can always take a turn for the worse.



And while we are at it, here is a reprise of a prior discussion of the Fed's swap lines with Europe, designed to relieve imbalanced demand for dollars.

The US is indeed contributing to the bailout of Greece, via its membership in the IMF. But not through the currency swap lines, unless there is something else going on there behind the scenes. Since the US owns the biggest printing press in the world, at least for now, that would not be a shock.

There may be a time to worry about European insolvency. But quite a bit of what we are hearing about Europe these days seems a bit overwrought, and spoken from the perspective of a particular set of speculative trades.

The Fed's Currency Swaps

Some controversy was triggered over a line of questioning this morning during Ben Bernanke's testimony before Congress, as reported on top financial blog sites Zerohedge and Naked Capitalism. We read them both daily and are often envious of the depth and breadth of their expertise.

Congressman Grayson's line of questioning implied that the Fed was providing loans to foreign companies. Others wondered if the Fed was engaged in propping up the dollar by forcing central banks to buy US dollars in these swaps.

During the current credit crisis the Fed first reacted to market conditions and requests from central banks starting in September 2008 by expanding its currency swap lines with the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank, and creating new swaps with the Bank of Japan, Bank of England and the Bank of Canada for $180 billion.

What Is a Currency Swap?

A currency swap is a transaction where two parties exchange an agreed amount of two currencies while at the same time agreeing to unwind the currency exchange at a future date.

The currency swap is executed at a given exchange rate, generally the market rate, in order to provide liquidity in a specific currency to a specific banking jurisdiction. Here is an example of a swap that was conducted with the BOE at the rate of 1.8173.



The reason for the swap is to provide the BOE with additional US dollars to meet the short term needs of its client banks, and the dollar demands of their customers.



In September private banks were reluctant to lend to one another or engage in private swaps because of a prevailing fear in the market of potential bank insolvencies and the counter party risk which that entails.

At the same time there was a 'run' on dollar assets in Europe as customers sought to liquidate their investments, denominated in US dollars, but held by foreign banks. Some of these investments ironically enough were collateralized debt obligations that had been sold by Wall Street. TED Spread Soars to New Record - Symptom of the Eurodollar Squeeze?



Did Wall Street set up their foreign counterparts, and then squeeze them mercilessly when they needed dollar assets? Probably giving the Street too much credit for planning. It is more likely a case of simple misrepresentation, followed by fear when the misrepresentation had been discovered.

The Ted Spread is the difference between the US Dollar LIBOR and the 3 Month US T Bill. It intends to measure the difference in 'price' between dollars in the US and dollars overseas. Nine out of ten people might notice a sharp spike in this spread as the credit crisis hit full fury in September 2008. Demystifying the TED Spread



As one can easily see, the TED Spread began to decline after the Fed and the Central Banks began to provide dollar liquidity where it was required.

There is concern amongst some people that the Fed was engaging in these currency swaps to prop the dollar, as expressed in the US Dollar Index (Dx).

There was no need to do these swaps to support the dollar, as the US dollar was already enjoying a strengthening as the 'flight to safety' currency. The original September tranche created by the Fed grew to 500 billion dollar swaps line as the Central Banks sought to prevent a currency crisis, an artificial dollar shortage in what amounted to a run on foreign banks for dollar holdings, as the credit crunch hit with its full fury.



The DX index is a somewhat imperfect gauge of the dollar value as it is heavily weighted to the Euro and Yen, and has a no exposure to some of the most important developing industrial powers.

More importantly, here is the Euro - Dollar Exchange Rate. Again, the 'jitters' over the state of the European Banking System were causing a steep decline early on and a flight to safety in the US Dollar. The Dollar Rally and the Deflationary Imbalances in the US Dollar Holdings of Overseas Banks



Ben Bernanke is no Alan Greenspan in that his deportment in front of Congress is rarely calm, but I did not find any particular 'tells' in his responses to Mr. Grayson beyond his usual skittishness and unease in the public spotlight.

Quite frankly, my initial take was that Ben was incredulous that the Congressman was asking such naive questions, particularly when the congressman started asking about the source of the Fed's authority to conduct foreign exchange operations.

Personally I wondered if it was a 'red herring' served up by a friendly Democrat. There are much more penetrating questions to be asked of Mr. Bernanke and his Fed, and these are not among them. Ron Paul is much closer to the mark than Congressman Grayson.

The concern about the swaps seemed a bit misplaced and confused. But the obvious opacity of the Fed and its operations does underscore the political naïveté in promoting the Federal Reserve as the uber regulator of the system.

One must wonder who is so politically tone deaf on the President's economic staff? Or is Larry Summers really that arrogant to think that he can be the next Fed chief and chairman of the SEC all rolled into one? Considering Larry's past performances, the answer may very well be yes.

Postscript: The emails show that there are those who observe, somewhat correctly, that if the Fed had done nothing to alleviate the eurodollar short squeeze then the dollar would have most likely appreciated in value, perhaps moreso than it had done.

The proponents of this solution do overlook the problem that the private markets for overnight loans had utterly seized, and to not provide central bank liquidity in this situation would have most likely have caused a cascade of significant failures, and a backlash from the rest of the world that would have been equally impressive.

There is the substantial issue, raised rather stridently by some of the central banks, that it was the US financial institutions and ratings agencies that had caused the problem in the first place by selling large amounts of fraudulent assets to trusting private bankers around the world. You know, those funny foreign folks who the US, as a net debtor with debt load growing mightily, is going to continue to ask to buy its debt and financial instruments now and for the forseeable future, and continue to support the dollar as a reserve currency.