NY Fed Treasury Purchases Bill

It tracks outright secondary-market purchases of Treasury bills for the System Open Market Account (SOMA). The New York Fed runs them through its Open Market Trading Desk under Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) authorization. The bill leg joins reserve management purchases (RMPs) with reinvested agency paydowns, sold only by primary dealers in a full census.

It does not track new Treasury sales, deficit funding or the policy stance. Agency mortgage buying, repos, securities lending and Treasury buybacks sit outside it, each reported on its own. Any pickup is technical reserve maintenance, not a stimulus signal or a return to quantitative easing.

Planned amounts and a tentative schedule appear around the 9th business day for mid-month to mid-next-month operations. Details go out at each start and results after each close, with prices at mid-month for the prior period. Results give propositions received and accepted and the amount per issue, settling next business day (T+1) through Fedwire.

SOMA holdings in H.4.1 come out each Thursday at 4:30 PM ET. No operations run on market holidays, and quiet months can pass with none or only small-value tests. The schedule stays tentative with the reserve outlook, while posted results stand final.

Buying follows reserve needs, money markets and reinvestment flows.

• Treasury bills, 1 to 4 months, 75%: the core of reserve and reinvestment buying.
• Treasury bills, 4 to 12 months, 25%: the rest of bill buying.
• Treasury coupon securities, 1 month to 1.5 years, 50%: half of any coupon shift.
• Treasury coupon securities, 1.5 to 3 years, 50%: the other half of the conditional coupon share.
• Reinvestment stream: agency debt and mortgage-bond principal redirected into bills.
• Small-value operations of about $150 million: readiness tests counted in results with no policy signal.

Bill buying started on October 15, 2019 at about $60 billion a month. The aim was ample reserves above the early September 2019 level after money-market stress. The first month ran 8 operations capped at $7.525 billion each, totaling $60.2 billion. On March 12, 2020 the same $60 billion spread across 11 sectors covering coupons and bills.

The new mix added Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) and floating-rate notes (FRNs), so the bill share shrank while the total held. Daily buying then jumped to about $40 billion on March 16, 2020 and about $75 billion on each of March 19, 20 and 23, 2020.

1. Monthly total: Total equals RMP plus reinvestment.
2. RMP sizing: The Desk sizes buying from reserve supply, demand and money markets, with no preset course. It absorbs seasonal swings around tax dates and trend growth, buying more before troughs and less when demand cools.
3. Reinvestment: Reinvestment equals expected monthly agency debt and mortgage paydowns plus actual commercial mortgage paydowns from the prior month, all aimed into bills. Maturing Treasury holdings roll over at auction through non-competitive bids sized with new issues.
4. Sector split: Each bill sector gets the total times its weight: 75% to 1 to 4 months and 25% to 4 to 12 months. Weights use a 12-month average as of September 2025 and change over time; coupons split evenly. Illustratively, $60 billion divides into $45 billion and $15 billion.
5. Auction execution: Buying runs on FedTrade Plus as multiple-price auctions, with each winner paid at its own bid. Minimum and step are $1 million with up to 9 bids per security; bills go as rates, floating-rate notes as discount margin.
6. Award and limits: Bids rank by closeness to closing prices plus relative value from the New York Fed's proprietary model. SOMA can never top 70% of one issue, with smaller add-ons near the cap.
7. Settlement and exclusions: Settlement comes next business day via the transfer system. Paper due within 4 weeks stays out, plus when-issued, cheapest-to-deliver, on-the-run and cash-management paper and scarce repo collateral.