USD Rates: Debt ceiling and liquidity shifts
Debt ceiling-triggered shifts in USD liquidity can spillover across short-term funding markets.
Group Research - Econs, Eugene Leow27 Jan 2023
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The US debt ceiling will trigger shifts in USD liquidity that can have impact on various aspects of the market. To recap, the US hit the USD31.4tn debt cap last week which means the government is not able to increase its gross debt from these levels. This event has triggered multiple times over the past decade and usually does not result in large market moves. The recent exception would be the 2011 episode when S&P downgraded the debt rating for the US. Taking QT as a given,the next most important variable to consider would be the Treasury’s Cash Balance. This figure tends to fluctuate depending on revenue, expenditure and issuance dynamics. However, with issuance not part of the equation and assuming that expenditure outpaces revenue, it is likely that the cash balance, which amounts to about USD 580bn, would get drawn down in the coming months. This constitutes an injection of USD liquidity into the system. 

This additional liquidity will mean that short-term USD rates should generally turn lower. T bill rates might buck the trend if the market prices in a chance of default, but other rates (with no default risk on the horizon) will probably come under some downward pressures. This could have spillover impact unto cross currency basis swaps (becoming more paid) as USD liquidity becomes flusher relative to the majors including EUR and JPY.  The injection in USD liquidity should be temporary.  Assuming that the debt ceiling gets resolved before the Treasury runs out of cash (perhaps sometime in mid-year), we would reasonably expect gross debt (issuances) to increase again. The Treasury may also have to rebuild cash buffers. Accordingly, total system liquidity should turn into a net drain the later part of this year.

Eugene Leow

Senior Rates Strategist - G3 & Asia
[email protected]
 
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