by Calculated Risk on 9/03/2009 04:30:00 PM

Just another mention: the Atlanta Fed puts out an Economic Highlights and Financial Highlights every week. They highlight different data each week ...

The Federal Reserve released the Factors Affecting Reserve Balances today. Total assets increased slightly to $2.119 trillion. This graph from the Atlanta Fed shows the breakdown in the assets (as of yesterday):

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

From the Atlanta Fed:

The size of the Fed’s balance sheet has largely been flat since March, remaining within a range of $2 trillion to $2.2 trillion.

The overall size of the Fed’s balance sheet has been flat during the past few months, and the broad trends remain little changed. That is, the sizeable declines in short-term lending to financials and nonbank credit markets have largely been offset by increases in holdings of Treasury securities, mortgage-backed securities (MBS), and agency debt.

On Friday, the Federal Reserve Board announced a reduction for the two September TAF auctions, lowering both from $100 billion to $75 billion. The Board has cut the amounts available in the TAF auctions three times in $25 billion increments (from the program’s maximum of $150 billion, last available in June).

The second graph shows a breakdown of Fed Treasury purchases by maturity. From the Atlanta Fed:

Decomposing the Fed’s purchases of Treasury securities by maturity shows a heavy focus in the four-to-seven-year and seven-to-10-year sectors, together making up half of all purchases so far.

But the last four Treasury purchases have been focused elsewhere, with the biggest purchases in the shorter end of the yield curve.

The Fed has purchased a total of $276.4 billion of Treasury securities through September 2. Of the $271.8 billion in non-TIPS securities, the Fed has focused on the four-to-seven-year and seven-to-10-year sectors the most, purchasing approximately $65 billion in each (totaling about half of all purchases).

The two-to-three-year and three-to-four-year sectors have also received a fair amount of attention, especially following two large purchases in the last week and a half in each sector. Recently, the Fed purchased $6.1 billion in the two-to-three-year sector on August 24, $2.3 billion in the 17-to-30-year sector on August 26, and $5.6 billion in the three-to-four-year sector on September 1.

The FOMC statement released on Wednesday, August 12, said the Fed is “in the process of buying $300 billion of Treasury securities” by the end of October. This statement was an adjustment from previous statements that stated “up to” $300 billion in purchases would be made “by autumn.”

There is much more in the highlights. Enjoy.