Search Results
Working Paper
The Fed Takes On Corporate Credit Risk: An Analysis of the Efficacy of the SMCCF
This paper evaluates the efficacy of the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility, a program designed to stabilize the U.S. corporate bond market during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program announcements on March 23 and April 9, 2020, significantly reduced investment-grade credit spreads across the maturity spectrum—irrespective of the program’s maturity-eligibility criterion—and ultimately restored the normal upward-sloping term structure of credit spreads. The Federal Reserve’s actual purchases reduced credit spreads of eligible bonds 3 basis points more than those of ineligible ...
Speech
The Federal Reserve’s Recent Actions to Support the Flow of Credit to Households and Businesses
Remarks before the Foreign Exchange Committee, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York City.
Report
COVID Response: The Primary and Secondary Corporate Credit Facilities
The Federal Reserve introduced the Primary Market Corporate Credit Facility (PMCCF) and the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility (SMCCF) in response to the severe disruptions in corporate bond markets triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic shutdowns. The Corporate Credit Facilities (CCFs) were designed to work together to restore functioning of credit markets, with an overarching goal of facilitating credit provision to the non-financial corporate sector of the U.S. economy. This paper provides an overview of the CCFs, including detailing the facilities’ design, ...
Journal Article
Analyzing the Efficacy of the Fed's Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility
This article analyzes the effectiveness of the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility (SMCCF) in stabilizing the US corporate bond market during the COVID-19 pandemic. The SMCCF announcements in March and April 2020 significantly reduced credit spreads across different bond maturities, restoring a more typical upward-sloping yield curve. The Federal Reserve's bond purchases, though relatively small in scale, notably decreased credit spreads for eligible bonds compared to ineligible ones. The study's model suggests that market dynamics, including a rush to sell short-term safe bonds and ...
Working Paper
Corporate Bond Liquidity During the COVID-19 Crisis
We study liquidity conditions in the corporate bond market during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the effects of the unprecedented interventions by the Federal Reserve. We find that, at the height of the crisis, liquidity conditions deteriorated substantially, as dealers appeared unwilling to absorb corporate debt onto their balance sheets. In particular, we document that the cost of risky-principal trades increased by a factor of five, forcing traders to shift to slower, agency trades. The announcements of the Federal Reserve’s interventions coincided with substantial improvements in trading ...