An independent publication
Vol. I, No. 13 Afternoon Edition
A civic journal of money and credit
Live Federal Reserve rates, FOMC decisions, speeches, and Treasury data, with every figure copied from the agency that published it.
Explainers
Published · Updated
Plain-English answers to common questions about the Federal Reserve, each linked to the live data pages on this site.
These guides define terms. They hold no figures of their own: where a page shows a number, it is a stored print with its source and as-of date.
Quantitative tightening, or QT, is when the Federal Reserve lets the Treasury and mortgage securities it owns mature without buying new ones, so its balance sheet gets smaller over time.
The federal funds rate is the interest rate banks charge each other for overnight loans of reserves, and the Federal Reserve steers it by setting a target range.
SOFR, the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, is the overnight cost of borrowing cash when Treasury securities are pledged as collateral, published each business day by the New York Fed.
The Fed's balance sheet is the list of what the Federal Reserve owns, mainly Treasury and mortgage securities, and what it owes, mainly bank reserves and currency in circulation.
The Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, is the Federal Reserve body that votes on the target range for the federal funds rate and on how the Fed manages its securities portfolio.