The Federal Reserve amassed a (relatively) small amount of corporate bonds and exchange-traded funds via an emergency-lending program set up to combat the pandemic economic impact.

It has announced it'll soon be selling them off, more here:

The amounts, as I said above, are a relatively small part of Fed intervention, circa:

  • US$8.5b of ETFs
  • US$5n of bonds

I'm reading this as the Federal Reserve slinking ever so slightly towards taper (or at least talking about it!) and I'm sure not to be alone in this take.

Dallas Fed Head Kaplan has been urging a discussion of taper:

The Federal Reserve amassed a (relatively) small amount of corporate bonds and exchange-traded funds via an emergency-lending program set up to combat the pandemic economic impact.