The Impact of REPO Operations on the Fed’s Balance Sheet

The Impact of REPO Operations on the Fed's Balance Sheet

The Impact of REPO Operations on the Fed’s Balance Sheet. Half a trillion in a couple of weeks

During the week, the Fed reduced its securities portfolio by a modest $3.5 billion at the expense of MBS, but this is a drop in the bucket compared to the $96 billion that the Fed issued in REPO to banks ($60 billion), loans to banks and FDIC ($36 billion), as a result of these operations, the Fed’s assets increased by another $94.5 billion for the week. At the same time, banks reduced borrowing through an expensive discount window (-$42.6 billion) and increased borrowing under the BTFP program (+$41.7 billion), and the FDIC took an additional $37 billion to pay deposits.

The US Treasury continued to actively spend the “cache” from accounts at the Fed, adding another $77.8 billion to the financial system (of which $28.5 billion is still in the same FDIC for deposit payments), Yellen has only $200 billion left in her accounts, but April is ahead with its annual taxes. In general, the Fed, together with the US Treasury, poured $172.3 billion into the financial system.

In total, in 2 weeks, the US Treasury added $112 billion to the financial system, the Fed poured $ 386 billion, i.e. in the amount of about $0.5 trillion – about as many deposits apparently moved. It is clear that some of them were simply transferred to other banks, more than half went to money market funds and government bonds. Americans did not run much into cash, but they nevertheless became more active ($8.4 billion).

While some banks are running to the Fed for money, others are placing money there through reverse REPO (+$226.9 billion per week) in order to draw beautiful reports. As a result, despite the actively working printing press, money on bank accounts at the Fed has become less by $74.2 billion. In fact, such a story may indicate that the banking system is bad with trust, some banks are actively attracting money from the Fed, others are even more actively parking a free “cache” in it – this is more reliable. In general, “the banking system is stable” (c) Yellen, but banks’ limits on colleagues are beginning to be cut. At the same time, some part of the deposits of the population runs to money market funds, funds working with government bonds received an influx of $276.5 billion in 2 weeks – a record for many years. A little has flowed into cash, but just a little + $8.3 billion.
The most powerful weekly dumping of US government bonds by foreign central banks, which are stored in the Fed, has passed since 2014 – $70 billion in a week, it was more only when Russia dumped in March 2014 ($106 billion). @ESG_Stock_Market

Inflation Rate in US now Hits 6% YoY in February despite Used Car Drop

Inflation Rate in US now

❗️US inflation in February was 0.4% mom, 6.0% YoY, core inflation 0.5% mom, 5.5% YoY. And this despite the fact that used cars unexpectedly gave out a drop again – 2.8% m/m…

The banks’ opinions on the Fed’s further actions are divided, some believe that the Fed will cut rates in March… someone that leave unchanged… someone who will raise (1-3 times by 25 bps). The market has calmed down a little and is waiting for a 25 bps rate increase (69% probability) rather than remaining unchanged (31%), and another increase in May … but since July, he has been betting on a reduction in rates. The Fed needs to save face…

According to the current decisions on SVB and Signature, $264 billion of deposits need to be returned, of which about $30 billion and about $234 billion should be given by the Fed as collateral for assets (there are not enough securities on the balance sheets of both banks for collateral). The FDIC itself had $128 billion at the end of 2022, mainly in government bonds (for $126 billion of government bonds at face value). In 2021 and 2022, they managed to consolidate ~ $5 billion a year into the insurance fund. One way or another, the Fed will simply “print” about a quarter of a trillion dollars, which the FDIC will receive at 5% + per annum and distribute to depositors. The $25 billion that the US Treasury will provide is an amount close to the difference between the nominal and market value of collateral assets (a guarantee for the Fed).

At the weekend, J. Yellen refused to comment on the Fed’s further actions, saying on duty about the Fed’s independence and that they would evaluate it in the coming days and weeks. At the same time, she actually admitted that bankruptcies are a consequence of high rates: “The problems of this bank, from reporting about its situation, suggest that because we’re in a higher interest rate environment…”. There is no doubt that Yellen and Powell discussed this issue, but most likely no decisions have been made yet.
It is already obvious to everyone that what is happening is a consequence of the increase in rates, it is not obvious to everyone… but these are only the first signs of the consequences of the rate hike cycle, the losses of the financial system from the rate increase will continue to accumulate. For Powell, the situation is extremely unpleasant, a couple of days ago he went “hawk” (and not only he, but also other representatives of the Fed)… whether something has changed with inflation – not significantly. And just like that, to turn around right away is an epic failure and a blow to trust (which is so not very high). The market is already showing what it thinks – the growth of gold / bitcoin, the fall of the dollar, etc.

If inflation had slowed down on Tuesday, it would have been easier for the Fed to justify a reverse move. But no …


​​#USA #inflation #economy #Fed #debt #rates #dollar

Looking more closely at American inflation…

Externally, the report has no large deviations from expectations, total inflation is 0.4% mom and 6.0% YoY, without energy and food 0.5% mom and 5.5% yoy. But in reality, only one–time stories saved from a sharper price increase: used cars (-2.8% mom disinflation after a rapid takeoff), gas (-8% mom – heat), eggs (-6.7% mom disinflation) and medical insurance (-4.1% mom to the current inflationary reality has a very distant relationship). Together, these factors reduced monthly inflation by ~0.2 percentage points – too much.

Grocery inflation slowed down slightly by 0.4% mom and 9.5% YoY, but remains aggressive. Goods without energy, food and used cars added 0.4% mom and 4.2% YoY, growth decently slowed down from highs amid the migration of consumption from goods to services, but in the last three months the price increase has stabilized around 4-5% YoY. The main drive remains in services (0.5% mom and 7.6% yoy), active growth in housing continues (0.8% mom and 8.1% yoy), although this is an inertial growth, transport has accelerated (1.1% mom and 14.6% yoy), but mainly due to air travel (6.4% m/m).

If we discard various one–time emissions, inflation accelerated in February rather, various inflation indices cleared of volatile components remained at the ceiling of 6-7% YoY and even accelerated at the moment. I would still estimate the steady inflationary momentum as 4.5-5%, the New York Federal Reserve estimates at 4.9%. This means that even a neutral rate is 5-5.5%… and a restrictive policy means the rate is even higher. However, the same New York Fed published data on inflation expectations – annual expectations decreased from 5% to 4.2% than the Fed may try to justify caution. But the inflationary history as a whole speaks for an increase further.

PS: If anyone remembers, a couple of years ago, the Fed approved a new strategy and switched to targeting the average inflation rate (the average for 5 years is already 3.5%, for example), so if you approach it quite formally, then in order to fulfill your goals, Powell should lower inflation below 2% and keep it for a long time

@ESG_Stock_Market

 

5 AI Photo Generators for Creating Non-Existent People

5 generators of faces of non-existent people. Neural networks for generating photos of people. A selection of neural networks for generating realistic photos of non-existent people. An alternative to the ThisPersonDoesnotExist site.

Content
1. Random Face Generator
2. Bored Humans
3. Unreal Person
4. Which face is real
5. Generated photos

5 AI Photo Generators 

Random Face Generator

Creates a random human face in 1 click. Artificial intelligence generates photos of a man, woman or child.

Random Face Generator

One-click generation.
The AI face generator is based on StyleGAN.
Free generation is available.
Link: https://this-person-does-not-exist.com

Bored Humans

This neural network was trained to create fake people using a database of 70,000 photos of real people.

Bored Humans

One-click generation.
There is an old version on StyleGAN-Tensorflow and a new version — StyleGAN Chainer.
There are 50 funny pages of Artificial intelligence (AI).
Free service.
Link: https://boredhumans.com/faces.php

Unreal Person

It is an artificial intelligence image generator that has been trained on billions of human faces to create a completely new face that does not exist.

Unreal Person

One-click generation
Generation of human faces, animals and art images.
Completely free service
Link: https://www.unrealperson.com

Which face is real

All images are either computer generated using StyleGAN software, or are real photos from the FFHQ Creative Commons dataset and publicly available images.

The site offers to guess which photo is real. When you click one of them, the correct option will be highlighted with a green frame. So the second one is a generated neural network.

Which face is real

One-click generation
The page displays 2 photos – one real, the second generated.
Link: https://www.whichfaceisreal.com/index.php

Generated photos

The service generates faces according to the specified parameters.

Generated photos

Generation of faces, portraits, emotions, objects, surfaces
There is a choice of background
There is a choice of face generation, head pose, gender, age and so on.
Free rate and paid rate — $19.99
Link: https://generated.photos/faces/

20 Internet Giants Who Rule the Internet

20 Internet Giants

With each passing year, more and more of the population no longer remembers images loading one line of pixels at a time, the deafening sound of the 56k modem, or the early dominance of Web portals.

The 20 Internet giants that ruled the Internet from 1998 to the present

Many of the leading Web sites in 1998 were news aggregators or search portals that were easy to understand. Today, brand touchpoints are often spread across devices (e.g., mobile apps and desktops) and multiple services and sub-brands (e.g., the Facebook app constellation). As a result, the world’s largest websites are complex, interconnected web resources.

The above visualization, which primarily uses data from ComScore’s US multiplatform property rankings, shows which of the Internet giants have evolved to stay on top, and which have disappeared into Internet lore.

America goes online

For millions of curious people in the late ’90s, the iconic AOL CD was the key that opened the door to the World Wide Web. At its peak, an estimated 35 million people used the Internet through AOL , and the company raised the dot-com bubble to dizzying heights, reaching a valuation of $222 billion in 1999.

The AOL brand may no longer carry the cachet it once had, but the brand has never completely faded into obscurity. The company continually evolved and finally merged with Yahoo after Verizon acquired both legendary Internet brands. Verizon had high hopes for a company called Oath, which had become a “third option” for advertisers and users who were fed up with Google and Facebook.

Unfortunately, those ambitions did not materialize as planned. Oath was renamed Verizon Media in 2019 and sold again in 2021.

City of gifs and web logs

When Internet use began to reach critical mass, Web hosts like AngelFire and GeoCities made it easy for people to create a new home online.

GeoCities, in particular, had a huge impact on the early Internet, hosting millions of Web sites and giving people a real stake in creating online content. If it were a physical community of “home” pages, it would be the third largest city in America after Los Angeles.

This early online community was in danger of being completely destroyed when Yahoo finally shut down GeoCities in 2009, but fortunately the nonprofit Internet Archive made a special effort to create a thorough record of the pages hosted on GeoCities.

From A to Z

In December 1998, long before Amazon became the well-oiled retail machine we know today, the company was in the midst of the holiday season.

In the real world, employees worked long hours and even slept in their cars to ensure the flow of goods, while online Amazon.com became one of the largest sites on the Internet as people began to get used to the idea of shopping online. . Demand skyrocketed when the company began to expand its offerings beyond books.

Rack for digital magazines

Meredith will be an unfamiliar brand to many people reviewing today’s top 20 list. While Meredith’s name may not be a household name, the company has controlled many of the country’s most popular magazine brands (People, AllRecipes, Martha Stewart, Health, etc.), including their significant digital footprints. The company also owned many local television networks in the United States.

After acquiring Time Inc. in 2017, Meredith became the largest magazine publisher in the world. Since then, however, Meredith has sold many of its most valuable assets (Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune). In December 2021 Meredith merged with Dotdash IAC .

Google

When people have burning questions, they increasingly turn to the Internet for answers, but the variety of sources for those answers is shrinking.

Even as recently as 2013, we see that About.com, Ask.com and Answers.com were still among the largest websites in America. Today, however, Google seems to have cemented its status as the universal answer source.

As smart speakers and voice assistants continue to permeate the market and influence search behavior, Google is unlikely to face competition from any company not already in the top 20.

New Kids in the Neighborhood

Social media has long outgrown its quirky stage and is now a common digital thread that connects people around the world. While Facebook quickly made it into the top 20 by 2007, other social media-based brands took longer to evolve into Internet giants.

By 2018, Twitter, Snapchat and the Facebook platform were in the top 20, and you can see a more detailed and up-to-date breakdown of the social media universe here .

The Tangled Web

Today’s Internet giants have far surpassed their ancestors of two decades ago. Many of the top 20 companies operate numerous platforms and content streams, and more often than not, they are not household names.

Some, such as Mediavine and CafeMedia, are ad management services. Others manage the distribution of content, such as music, or manage a constellation of smaller media resources, as in the case of Hearst.

Finally, there are the technology giants. Notably, in 1998, three of the top five Web resources made the top 20 list. In a rapidly evolving digital ecosystem, this is remarkable resilience.

#internetgiant
@ESG_Stock_Market

Tourism is back to the level of 1990

Tourism is back to the level

While the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has bypassed few industries, even fewer have been as hard hit as the tourism sector. The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) reports that, as 2020 drew to a close and severe travel restrictions were still in place, international tourist arrivals were down 74 percent in 2020 from the previous year. This corresponds to a decline of about 1 billion international arrivals, returning the industry to levels last seen in the late 1980s.

Prior to the coronavirus outbreak, the global tourism sector had shown almost uninterrupted growth for decades. Since 1980, international arrivals have soared from 277 million to nearly 1.5 billion in 2019. As our chart shows, the two major crises of recent decades, the SARS epidemic of 2003 and the global financial crisis of 2009, were minor blows in the road compared to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Looking ahead, most experts don’t expect a full recovery in 2021 and 2022, which began with many countries still struggling with the second wave of the pandemic. The UNWTO estimates that it will take 2.5 to 4 years for the industry to return to pre-pandemic levels of international tourist arrivals.


#tourism #coronavirus #COVID-19
@ESG_Stock_Market

Customer confidence in business

confidence in business

The level of customer confidence in businesses varies around the world
A high level of customer confidence will prove critical to business recovery when the pandemic finally comes to an end (or at least approaches a near-normal stage). An Edelman Research survey in November 2021 surveyed 36,000 respondents in 28 countries about their confidence that businesses are “doing the right thing. The study found that people in China, Indonesia and India have the most confidence: 84 percent, 81 percent and 79 percent, respectively.

This figure was much lower in the United States at 49 percent, while in Russia it was even lower at just 34 percent. In just eleven countries trust in business increased, while in eleven it decreased. It is interesting that in 23 out of the 28 countries surveyed, more trust is placed in business than in government. The average level of trust in business globally was 61 percent compared to 52 percent in government.

#trust #client
@ESG_Stock_Market

What is the best student city in the world?

what is the best student city in the world

The city in which someone studies can have a huge impact not only on their time at university, but also on their experience after graduation. The universities a city has to offer are by far the most important factor in a student’s life after graduation, but as QS rankings take into account, international students should also consider aspects such as student composition, safety, standard of living, employer activity. and affordability for the time they study.

As our infographic shows, if you take all this (and more) into account, the UK is home to the top-ranked city: “This year’s ranking is again topped by London. Home to several top universities, including UCL (University College London) , Imperial College London and King’s College London, this city has been popular with students for years, and there are plenty of world-class institutions from which students can choose.”

#london #munich #seoul #tokyo #berlin #zurich #melbourne #sydney
@ESG_Stock_Market

Why are Americans quitting their jobs. Quitting after pandemic

Why are Americans quitting their jobs

After the unprecedented job crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, a new trend emerged in the U.S. labor market during 2021, with millions of Americans voluntarily leaving their jobs. According to the latest JOLTS report , the “Great Dismissal” gathered momentum again in November, when a record 4.53 million Americans quit their jobs.

The number of Americans laying off has exceeded the pre-pandemic high for eight consecutive months as employers, especially in low-wage sectors, struggle to fill open positions. The reasons for this trend are manifold, of course, but one major factor seems to be that many workers are no longer willing to put up with the pay and/or working conditions they (perhaps reluctantly) agreed to before the pandemic. “I certainly think the pandemic has caused many people to reevaluate their jobs, their priorities and what they want to do,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, in a statement to Business Insider.

The fact that layoff rates are particularly high in sectors with large numbers of frontline workers, such as hospitality, health care and retail, suggests that safety concerns also play a role in workers’ exodus, while vaccination mandates have also contributed to the ongoing trend.
#work
@ESG_Stock_Market

How does fiverr work

Post Views: 37 Answering the question How does Fiverr work Fiverr is the perfect freelancers, the perfect employers Find the perfect freelance services for your business.  Popular professional services How does fiverr work. A whole world of freelance talent at your fingertips The best for every budget. Find high-quality services at every price point. No … Read more

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