Expanding the balance sheet by buying government bonds on the open market, known as quantitative easing, is an unconventional tool that the Fed and other central banks use to stimulate economies when policy interest rates are near or below zero and can’t effectively be lowered further. Now, with rates rising, there’s logic in the balance sheet’s expansion being reversed.

“The Fed has minimal experience in removing stimulus by shrinking its balance sheet,” said Josh Hirt, a Vanguard senior economist who studies the Fed, “so markets unsurprisingly take notice. That’s especially true now as the Fed plans to move with a less cautious cadence compared with the previous time it employed quantitative tightening.”

The Fed plans to reduce its $8.5 trillion balance sheet beginning June 1, when it will no longer reinvest proceeds of up to $30 billion in maturing Treasury securities and up to $17.5 billion in maturing agency mortgage-backed securities per month. Beginning September 1, those caps will rise to $60 billion and $35 billion, respectively, for a maximum potential monthly balance sheet roll-off of $95 billion.

The Fed ended bond purchases only in March 2022, so this tightening is occurring considerably sooner than in the last reduction cycle. After the global financial crisis, the Fed ended quantitative easing purchases in 2014 but didn’t start to reduce its balance sheet until 2017. The maximum roll-off then was roughly half of that expected this time around.

Three key factors explain today’s faster pace:

• The Fed’s balance sheet is significantly larger this time relative to what would be considered an optimal range to effectively implement monetary policy.
• The economy is at a more advanced stage of the business cycle and running hotter, as reflected in a smaller output gap, lower unemployment, and higher inflation than in 2014.
• The Fed is likely less uncertain now about how markets and financial conditions may react given that it has at least some experience in communicating and executing roll-off plans. 

What likely won’t change is the Fed favoring the policy rate as its primary tool to effect policy, with balance sheet reduction running in the proverbial background to maximize predictability and minimize market disruption. That, along with concerns that balance sheet reduction would lead to much higher interest rates at the long end of the yield curve, is why the Fed set monthly caps for letting bonds mature passively rather than planning to actively sell securities from its portfolio.

Another consideration relates to the eventual terminal size of the balance sheet in terms of ensuring adequate market liquidity and carrying out monetary policy, which would serve as a guide for when the Fed would end asset roll-off. At present, this terminal size is uncertain. However, as shown in the graphic using simplifying assumptions, Vanguard estimates that the balance sheet may settle around 18% of GDP, or just above $5 trillion, before the Fed begins winding down and eventually ending its roll-off, at which point it will allow its assets to grow in relation to the size of the economy. “That level could be reached around the end of 2025, barring any pauses or significant deviations from the currently communicated plan,” Hirt said.

The Fed’s tightening plan comes with challenges, according to Brian Quigley, Vanguard head of MBS, agencies, and volatility. “Judging the appropriate pace and cumulative amount of tightening will be more difficult,” Quigley said. “The Fed stepping away as a buyer of the market will prompt a period of adjustment that will ripple across financial markets as valuations will have to cheapen to attract more price-sensitive buyers. That this will be happening as a number of other major central banks will be hiking rates and unwinding their balance sheets is a complicating factor.”

How effectively policymakers remove accommodations from global economies will remain a crucial theme for 2022 and beyond, just as it was when we published the Vanguard Economic and Market Outlook for 2022: Striking a Better Balance. In the near term, Vanguard economists continue to expect that economic growth and the labor market will moderate but remain strong toward year-end. Core measures of inflation (removing volatile food and energy prices) are similarly expected to moderate throughout the year but to stay at levels well above the Fed’s 2% target.

Amid a challenging environment for central banks to balance inflation dynamics, the pace and eventual end point of policy rate increases will likely remain a focal point beyond 2022.