38 posts on "Financial Markets"
January 16, 2026
How Monetary Policy Tools Helped Limit Money Market Pressures at Year‑End
Similar to prior year-ends, overnight secured money markets experienced rate pressures on and around Dec. 31, 2025. While these pressures were substantial, they were short-lived, and overall market functioning was orderly. Moreover, higher overnight rates in the repurchase agreement, or repo, market did not spill over to the Federal Reserve’s policy rate, the federal funds rate. Orderly conditions over year-end followed recent decisions by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to resume balance sheet growth and enhance standing repo (SRP) operations. These recent decisions were made to maintain ample liquidity in the financial system and keep the federal funds rate within the target range set by the FOMC.
December 17, 2025
Ideas in Focus at the 2025 U.S. Treasury Market Conference
As the deepest and most liquid securities market worldwide, the U.S. Treasury market plays a critical role in the global economy. As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in his remarks, “Maintaining a robust Treasury market—and strengthening it even further—is essential.”
Posted in Financial Markets | Permalink
November 19, 2025
Understanding the Federal Home Loan Bank System: What It Is and Why It Matters
The Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) system was created almost a century ago and has evolved over time to play an important role in monetary policy implementation. It is a key participant in money markets, providing liquidity to thousands of financial institutions in the U.S. This article looks at why this system was created, how it is structured, and the composition of its balance sheet.
October 17, 2025
NBFIs in Focus: The Basics of Private Credit
This is part of an ongoing educational series on nonbank financial institutions.
Nonbank financial institutions (NBFIs) play a critical role in private credit, which has recently become a key source of financing for corporations. In this article, we describe private credit and its recent growth, the role of NBFIs in the private credit ecosystem, and how private credit interacts with the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy, prudential supervision, and financial stability objectives.
October 16, 2025
NBFIs in Focus: The Basics of Hedge Funds
This is part of an ongoing educational series on nonbank financial institutions.
Hedge funds are a category of nonbank financial institutions (NBFIs) that play a significant role in the U.S. financial system. Since they transact in a wide range of asset classes and are major counterparties of the largest banks, their activities increasingly affect market liquidity, price discovery, and overall market functioning. In this article, we discuss the role of hedge funds in the U.S. financial system, their growth, and their relevance to the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy, prudential supervision, and financial stability objectives.
October 15, 2025
NBFIs in Focus: The Basics of Mutual Funds and ETFs
This is part of an ongoing educational series on nonbank financial institutions.
Mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, are important nonbank financial institutions (NBFIs) in the U.S. financial system. Both are widely accessible investment vehicles that can hold various kinds of assets. Combined, nearly 75 percent of mutual fund and ETF assets are stocks, about 20 percent are bonds, and the rest are commodities and other assets, according to Morningstar data through September. Mutual funds and ETFs are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and are required to disclose information about their investment objectives, structures, and operations on a quarterly basis. This article details how mutual funds and ETFs differ, their recent growth, and their importance to the Federal Reserve’s objectives of monetary policy, prudential supervision, and financial stability. It does not cover money market mutual funds, which are a different type of NBFI.
September 25, 2025
Promoting Good Practices in the FX Market
The New York Fed has unique responsibilities to support the Federal Reserve System’s monetary policy and financial stability goals. As part of that, the New York Fed participates in the foreign exchange (FX) market by intervening when directed by the Federal Open Market Committee and U.S. Treasury, conducting FX transactions for official sector account holders, managing international dollar liquidity facilities, and monitoring global market developments. It also sponsors the Foreign Exchange Committee (FXC), represents the U.S. on the Global Foreign Exchange Committee (GFXC), and convenes the industry and public sector from around the world for FX market structure conferences.
Posted in Financial Markets | Permalink
July 17, 2025
Federal Reserve Repo and Reverse Repo Market Operations: 2015 to Now
In a prior article, we discussed the scarce reserves regime the Fed used to implement monetary policy before the global financial crisis, and how the Fed’s repo and reverse repo operations evolved in response to the crisis. In this article, we explore the continued evolution of repo and reverse repo operations—namely, how they were structured to address the spike in repo rates in September 2019 and the extraordinary market dislocations at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
July 16, 2025
Federal Reserve Repo and Reverse Repo Market Operations: Before the Global Financial Crisis to 2015
Repurchase and reverse repurchase operations—or “repo and reverse repo” transactions—are critical to the Federal Reserve’s implementation of monetary policy. Alongside a broader suite of open market operations, these transactions influence interest rates and support smooth market functioning by helping to maintain the federal funds rate well within the target range set by the Federal Open Market Committee.
May 13, 2025
Highlights from Roberto Perli’s Speech on Treasury Market Conditions
Roberto Perli, manager of the Federal Reserve’s System Open Market Account (SOMA), spoke at the Eighth Short-Term Funding Markets Conference at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C. on May 9.
