A few common macro posts that come up over and over on this platform that you can mostly ignore. 1) “The Fed injected [X billion]…” That’s usually the Fed recycling their maturing securities back into more of the same securities. Or the Fed doing some repo activity, adding a tiny bit of liquidity that comes back out the next day. This year, the Fed is growing their balance sheet very slowly. 2) “The Treasury bought back [X0 billion] of government bonds…” The Treasury performing buybacks on its own debt is interesting because the deepest, most liquid capital market in the world shouldn’t need the issuer assisting with liquidity. And they could potentially shorten duration over time by issuing t-bills to buy back T-bonds, so that’s worth monitoring. But for the most part, these announcements are nothingburgers. The Treasury issues fresh liquid bonds to buy back aging less-liquid bonds. No appreciable impact on your money or investments. 3) The Treasury has [X trillion] in debt to refinance over the next 12 months, how are they possibly gonna find so many buyers?” The vast majority of the Treasury’s debt that will be refinanced over a given year will be bought by the same entities holding it now. They’re holding t-bills, those t-bills mature into cash, and they buy the next t-bill. Money market funds, insurance companies, pensions, individuals, corporations, etc. Posting about gross refinance numbers is popular because the number is big and sensationalist, but it doesn’t mean much, which is why you hear about it for years and it’s fine. Net new issuance (about $2 trillion per year) is mostly what matters, and nothing stops that train. 4) “Banks have [X00 billion] in unrealized losses…” Yeah that was a problem for about one quarter in spring 2023. It’s mostly a non-issue since then but whenever the quarterly number comes out, people love to report it like it’s devastating new information. The number is trending flat-to-down, and it’s a small portion of bank assets and equity capital. Anyway, good morning. Carry on.(Lyn Alden)