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Here's a graph of the capital on the Federal reserve balance sheet from 2003 until present:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WCTCL

enter image description here

Capital dropped by 32% in December 2015.

Is there anywhere I can read about why the capital dropped so dramatically at that point?

And perhaps why has it not changed much since then?

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1 Answer 1

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The Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST), which was enacted on December 4, 2015, requires that aggregate Federal Reserve Bank surplus not exceed \$10 billion.

The amounts of the line items "Other liabilities and capital" on table 1, and "Surplus" on tables 5 and 6 reflect the payment of approximately \$19.3 billion to Treasury on December 28, 2015, which was necessary to reduce aggregate Reserve Bank surplus to the \$10 billion limitation in the FAST Act.

Source: Factors Affecting Reserve Balances - H.4.1

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  • 4
    $\begingroup$ Great answer, thank you! $\endgroup$
    – dharmatech
    Jul 29, 2022 at 11:57
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ and that money is held in the Treasury General Account with The Federal Reserve Bank of New York... $\endgroup$
    – PatrickT
    Jul 29, 2022 at 21:48

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