Fed issues details on bond buys
THE UNITED States Federal Reserve released a list of roughly 750 companies, including Apple, Walmart and ExxonMobil, whose corporate bonds it will purchase in the coming months in an effort to keep borrowing costs low and smooth the flow of credit.
The central bank also said it has, so far, purchased nearly US$429 million in corporate bonds from 86 of those companies, including AT&T, Walgreens, Microsoft, Pfizer and Marathon Petroleum.
The Fed announced in March that it would, for the first time in its history, purchase corporate bonds as the intensifying viral outbreak caused panicked investors to dump most types of securities in a rush to hold cash. That pushed up a range of interest rates and made it nearly impossible for companies to borrow more by issuing new bonds.
Yet, once the Fed said it companies, such as Quaker Oats and the distiller Brown-Forman, which makes Jack Daniel’s and Woodford Reserve whiskeys, make up roughly a third of the index. That sector is followed by utilities, at 10 per cent, and energy firms, at more than 9 per cent. The index also includes insurance companies but no banks.
The Fed will only buy highly rated debt from financially healthy companies, or ones that were highly rated before the pandemic struck. The Fed is legally barred from lending to insolvent companies. It has said it would report on its purchases every 30 days.
The Fed said Sunday that it made its first bond buys from 86 companies last week. Those companies include Nike, broadcaster Fox Corp, Paypal, Target, Campbell Soup and chipmaker Broadcom.
The central bank is also purchasing pools of bonds in exchange-traded funds, which operate similarly to mutual funds. The Fed currently owns US$6.8 billion of bond ETFs.
The Treasury Department has provided US$75 billion in taxpayer money to backstop any losses from the bond buys. So far, the Fed’s purchases remain modest relative to the programme’s announced US$750-billion cap.
By comparison, since March it has purchased more than US$2 trillion in Treasuries and mortgagebacked securities in an effort to pump cash into short-term lending markets.