After four weeks of decline, the Fed's balance sheet expanded slightly for the second week in a row.

SMM News: the Federal Reserve said today that in the most recent week, the total assets held by the Federal Reserve were $6.964 trillion, a slight increase and nearly double that of the same period last year.

After four consecutive weeks of declines, the Fed's balance sheet rose by $6.151 billion this week, down from $38 billion last week, according to the data. Total assets rose to $6.964755 trillion, up from $6.958604 trillion the week before. In the same period in 2019, the Fed's balance sheet was $3.803436 trillion.

The Fed's holdings of mortgage-backed securities were $1.9706 trillion, up from $1.948388 trillion the week before. The Fed held $4.265878 trillion in Treasuries, up from $4.253229 trillion the week before, and $2.094051 trillion in the same period in 2019.

Since the outbreak, the Fed has launched a series of emergency lending programs, which dwarfs its response in 2008. Massive purchases of Treasuries and mortgage bonds soared the Fed's balance sheet to $7.4 trillion from $4.2 trillion at the end of 2019. Today, its balance sheet is eight times larger than it was before the Great Depression.

As for the future size of the Fed's balance sheet, the consensus among analysts is that it is expected to rise to $8.5 trillion by the end of 2020, about $1,000bn below the year-end level forecast in May.

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