We wanted to post an update to our previous entry on Stresses in the Bond and Funding Markets and the Fed response. Over the last few days we have seen substantial easing in some of these markets as central bank actions have begun to filter through. Not all markets see the plumbing impacts immediately, as it can take some time for money to reach the target. Payments have to settle, loans extended, bond market programs fired up with funding and the like. The charts below are the same ones we showed before, in the eye of the storm (or at least we hope that was the eye).

FRA-OIS spreads. This is a spread of a forward rate agreement to swap fixed interest payments at some point in the future compared with the overnight index swap rate. Think of it as a measure of the risk or cost for banks to borrow in the future relative to a risk free rate. A forward TED Spread. It reached almost 80bps, and has since settled in around 50bps. Still a bit high, but notably lower.

Commercial Paper markets continue to be wide. The Feds Commercial Paper Funding Facility becomes operational in the first half of April. This facility was announced earlier in the month – per the NY Fed – “to enhance the liquidity of the commercial paper market by increasing the availability of term commercial paper funding to issuers and by providing greater assurance to both issuers and investors that firms and municipalities will be able to roll over their maturing commercial paper.” The facility is a Special Purpose Vehicle, funded through the Department of the Treasury to hold commercial paper. Eligible issuers also include municipalities, and an issuer is able to repurchase its own outstanding commercial paper and finance it through the SPV. Watch this space.

On-the-run/Off-the-run Treasury spreads. Benchmark points on the yield curve – those at the 2y, 5y and 10y point for example – are of particular interest to market participants and are generally the most liquid parts of the curve, and have futures contracts tied to them. The US Treasury curve has many bonds of all maturities, including bonds that have similar characteristics to the benchmark points – like a bond maturing a month before or after the current benchmark point. Being so close in terms of maturity and having the same risk free issuer, these bonds normally trade more or less in lockstep. Late last week, they began to move apart. The resumption of very large scale US Treasury purchases from the Fed have worked in reducing the anomalies in this space. The chart shows a measure of the pricing dislocations – a number between -1/+1 is normal, we are now back in that range.

Cross currency swap rates.The chart below shows Japanese Yen (JPY) funding costs. Roughly speaking this measures the extra cost over unsecured rates to swap JPY for USD at some future point. A Japanese company may swap JPY for USD today, with a 3m term. The cost of this should normally be the difference in relative unsecured lending rates (Libor etc). In periods of funding stress, a premium appears, which is the basis. The Fed eased the terms of its existing major swap lines and broadened the countries that can access the liquidity to include Brazil, Mexico, Australia South Korea and Australia among others. The updated chart for Japanese Yen shows the strain reducing substantially.

LIBOR spreadsmeasure the spreads in different maturities of LIBOR rates. These can shift with expectations of upcoming monetary policy action, but generally speaking need to be kept orderly for markets to function well. As the market expected and wanted a cut to zero, rates moved considerably, this arguably called for the Fed to pull forward its planned cut. The Fed cut for second time on Sunday March 15th (and then cancelled the regular March meeting).

The Fed’s goal here is to implement monetary policy – where stresses arise they will try and squash them. The capital ratios that are binding – reduced. Discount window stigma – gone. Overseas dollar costs going up – swap lines. Mortgages rates up a little – $200bn of MBS purchases. Treasury curve one-the-run/off-the-run blowing out, $500bn to fix. FRA-OIS spreads – squashed. Commercial paper blowing out – fire up the program. At times like these one starts to hear that the Fed must now be out of bullets. Rates are zero after all and what more can they do? Well people have said this for a while and here we are. The Fed is immensely powerful in dealing with this type of event, and clearly this time has acted very quickly and in particularly large size. As we write, another story comes up highlighting the impact on a different area where the Fed is now active, in corporate bonds. AAA CLO spreads have halved in two days. Municipal bond spreads were another area shifting out. The chart below shows the AAA muni yield as a percentage of the same duration US Treasury (relevant due to the different tax implications). So what did the Fed do – squashed it.