What the balance sheet actually did, week by week, and what the FOMC wrote about it

Quantitative easing is discussed almost entirely in adjectives. It is also published as a number, every Wednesday, since December 2002, and the FOMC has written down the rules it applies to shrinking it in documents anyone can open. This page reads the weekly series in full — 1,234 observations, a peak, a trough and the largest single week on record — then quotes the caps the committee set in May 2022, the total reduction it reports, and the date it announced the runoff would stop.

The series, from end to end

The Federal Reserve’s total assets are published weekly as at a Wednesday. The file read on 13 August 2026 has 1,234 observations, from 18 December 2002 to 5 August 2026. These are its landmarks, in dollars rather than adjectives.

Three ratios come straight out of that table. Between 3 September 2008 and 25 March 2009 the balance sheet more than doubled, rising 128.8% in twenty-nine weeks. Between 26 February 2020 and 13 April 2022 it rose 115.6%, from $4.16 trillion to $8.97 trillion. And from that peak to 5 August 2026 it fell 24.7%, a reduction of $2,217 billion.

The single most extreme week in the file is 25 March 2020, when total assets rose by approximately $586 billion in seven days. For scale, that one week is about four fifths of the entire balance sheet as it stood at the first observation in December 2002. The largest weekly decrease in the whole series is far smaller: about $130 billion, in the week to 29 April 2009. Expansion happens in weeks; contraction happens in years.

The rules for shrinking it, in the committee’s own words

On 4 May 2022 the FOMC published its Plans for Reducing the Size of the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet. The mechanism it describes is not selling: it is declining to reinvest. The Committee intends to reduce the Federal Reserve’s securities holdings over time in a predictable manner primarily by adjusting the amounts reinvested of principal payments received from securities held in the System Open Market Account, and beginning on June 1, principal payments from securities held in the SOMA will be reinvested to the extent that they exceed monthly caps. The caps are stated exactly.

The same document sets out three further intentions that are usually omitted from summaries. The Committee intends to maintain securities holdings in amounts needed to implement monetary policy efficiently and effectively in its ample reserves regime. It intends to slow and then stop the decline in the size of the balance sheet when reserve balances are somewhat above the level it judges to be consistent with ample reserves. And it notes that once balance sheet runoff has ceased, reserve balances will likely continue to decline for a time, reflecting growth in other Federal Reserve liabilities. In other words the plan, as written in 2022, always had an end that was not zero.

The principles published on 26 January 2022 are shorter and set the hierarchy: the Committee views changes in the target range for the federal funds rate as its primary means of adjusting the stance of monetary policy, and expects that balance sheet reduction will commence after the process of increasing the target range for the federal funds rate has begun. The balance sheet is described by its own owner as the secondary instrument.

The date it stopped, and the total the FOMC reports

The Federal Reserve’s policy normalization page, last updated 26 November 2025, records the end of the exercise: on October 29, 2025, the FOMC announced that it would cease the runoff of its securities holdings starting on December 1, 2025, and directed the Desk to roll over at auction all principal payments from the Federal Reserve’s holdings of Treasury securities and reinvest all principal payments from the Federal Reserve’s holdings of agency securities into Treasury bills.

The same page reports the size of what was done, and these are the Federal Reserve’s own figures rather than a computation from the weekly series: since balance sheet reduction began in June 2022, the Federal Reserve’s total securities holdings declined by more than $2.2 trillion, with redemptions of about $1.6 trillion in Treasury securities and $600 billion in agency mortgage-backed securities. It then puts that in a ratio nobody else supplies: the Federal Reserve’s securities holdings as a share of nominal GDP have declined 13 percentage points over this period, from 33 percent to 20 percent.

Two things follow. The reduction in securities holdings of more than $2.2 trillion and the fall in total assets of $2,217 billion computed above are close but are not the same quantity, and a page that treats them as interchangeable is conflating a portfolio with a balance sheet. And the reason given for stopping is stated: money market conditions suggesting that reserve levels were approaching the ample level— a supply-of-reserves judgement, not an economic forecast.

The stopping date is also visible in the weekly series, if you look for it rather than at it. The latest reading of $6,748.6 billion for 5 August 2026 is 24.7% below the peak and, on the direction of travel described above, no longer falling because of redemptions.

The money supply is a different series and behaves differently

Balance sheet and money supply are routinely used as synonyms, and the two series do not have the same shape. M2, the monthly seasonally adjusted stock, is published from January 1959.

The two series peak thirteen months apart— M2 in March 2022, total assets in April 2022 — which is close. What is not close is the depth of the fall. Total assets are 24.7% below their peak; M2 fell 4.8% from its peak to October 2023 and has since risen to 6.3% aboveit. One of the two series is at an all-time high and the other is a quarter below its own, on the same day. Any argument built on “the money supply” that quotes the balance sheet, or the reverse, is describing the wrong object.

Reading the Fed’s own pages on this, including the old one

Two Federal Reserve pages describe open market operations and they were last updated four and a half years apart. The policy normalization page carries 26 November 2025. The Credit and Liquidity Programs and the Balance Sheet page carries 10 May 2021, and it opens with its own health warning: Please note: This page discusses open market operations as implemented during and after the financial crisis that emerged in 2007. For current information on open market operations, visit Open Market Operations.

That older page still contains the clearest description of the mechanism, and it is worth quoting rather than paraphrasing. Open market operations, it says, divide into permanent and temporary; permanent operations involve outright purchases or sales of securities for the System Open Market Account, and during and after the financial crisis, permanent OMOs were used to adjust the Federal Reserve’s holdings of securities in order to put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates and to make financial conditions more accommodative. It also records the legal basis: the authority to conduct OMOs is found in section 14 of the Federal Reserve Act, and the range of securities that the Federal Reserve is authorized to purchase and sell is relatively limited.

The current open market operations page adds the more recent tools in one sentence: since 2021, Federal Reserve has conducted domestic standing repo (SRP) operations against eligible securities, which limit upward pressure and help provide a ceiling on rates to support the monetary policy implementation and smooth market functioning. Neither page uses the phrase “quantitative easing” in anything read for this work; the vocabulary of the institution is purchases, reinvestment, caps, runoff and reserves.

Five things to get right about this number

• Total assets are not securities holdings. The FOMC reports a securities decline of more than $2.2 trillion; the weekly total assets series falls by $2,217 billion. Similar, different, and not interchangeable.
• Runoff is not selling. The published plan reduces holdings by declining to reinvest maturing principal above a monthly cap, and the caps are $60 billion and $35 billion after the three-month phase-in.
• The balance sheet is the secondary tool, by the committee’s own statement. It views changes in the target range as its primary means of adjusting policy.
• The end point was never zero. The plan says holdings will be maintained in the amounts needed for an ample reserves regime, and that the decline would be slowed and stopped above that level.
• M2 and total assets are different series with different shapes. On the same day one is 6.3% above its 2022 peak and the other 24.7% below its own.

What these sources do not say

• No effect on inflation, employment or asset prices is claimed by any document read. The published plans describe holdings, caps and reserves, and nothing else.
• Total assets are not the securities portfolio. The weekly series is a consolidated total; the FOMC's $2.2 trillion figure is securities holdings. They are different quantities.
• Nothing about any other central bank. The ECB, Bank of England and Bank of Japan programmes were not read and are not described.
• No composition detail. The split between Treasury securities, agency debt, agency MBS and other assets on any date was not read for this page, only the totals and the redemption figures the FOMC reports.
• The published plan gives no end date and no target size. It states only that holdings will be maintained at the level needed for an ample reserves regime.
• One of the two Fed pages read is more than five years old and says so itself, directing readers elsewhere for current information.

How to verify this yourself

1. Download fredgraph.csv?id=WALCL and count the rows. There should be 1,234, beginning 18 December 2002.
2. Find the maximum value in that file. It should be 8,965,487, dated 13 April 2022.
3. Subtract each row from the one before it and find the largest positive difference. It should be the week ending 25 March 2020.
4. Open the policy normalization page and read the Plans of 4 May 2022. Four cap figures appear: 30, 60, 17.5 and 35 billion a month.
5. On the same page, find the paragraph reporting the total decline and the share of nominal GDP.
6. Download M2SL, find its maximum before 2024 and its latest value. The latest should be above the earlier peak while total assets are far below theirs.

Where to go next on this site

• The Federal Reserve — the target range those balance sheet decisions sit beside, with every dated change.
• Interest rates and asset prices — the long end of the curve, and what can and cannot be measured about it.
• Inflation and deflation — the price index the whole exercise is aimed at, read at source.
• All macroeconomics guides — the area index, one click away.

Sources opened for this page

Each source below was opened and read on 13 August 2026. Verified on 13 August 2026.

• Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System — Policy NormalizationUsed for: the announcement of 29 October 2025 to cease runoff from 1 December 2025 and the instruction to the Desk, the reported decline of more than $2.2 trillion in securities holdings with $1.6 trillion of Treasury and $600 billion of agency MBS redemptions, the fall in securities holdings from 33 to 20 percent of nominal GDP, the full text of the Plans of 4 May 2022 with all four monthly caps, the Principles of 26 January 2022, and the last-update stamp of 26 November 2025. Read 13 August 2026.
• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — FRED series WALCL, total assets, Wednesday levelUsed for: all 1,234 weekly observations from 18 December 2002 to 5 August 2026, the peak of $8,965,487 million on 13 April 2022, the latest reading of $6,748,567 million, the landmarks at 3 September 2008, 25 March 2009, 26 February 2020 and 10 June 2020, and the largest weekly increase and decrease. Read 13 August 2026.
• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — FRED series M2SL, M2 money stock, seasonally adjustedUsed for: the monthly series from January 1959 to June 2026, the February 2020 level of $15,492.8 billion, the March 2022 peak of $21,787.2 billion, the October 2023 trough of $20,737.5 billion and the June 2026 reading of $23,155.2 billion. Read 13 August 2026.
• Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System — Credit and Liquidity Programs and the Balance Sheet, open market operations chapterUsed for: the distinction between permanent and temporary open market operations, the statement that permanent operations were used to put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, the legal basis in section 14 of the Federal Reserve Act, the note that the range of securities is relatively limited, the page's own warning that it describes the period after 2007, and its last-update stamp of 10 May 2021. Read 13 August 2026.
• Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System — Open market operationsUsed for: the description of standing repo operations conducted since 2021 and their stated purpose of limiting upward pressure and providing a ceiling on rates. Read 13 August 2026.

Change log

• 13 August 2026— page rewritten from scratch against the Federal Reserve policy normalization page with the full text of the 2022 Plans and Principles, the Credit and Liquidity Programs page, the open market operations page and the weekly total assets and M2 series, all opened that day. Removed from the previous version: a description of quantitative easing as money printing, asserted with no source; claims about its effect on inflation and asset prices that no document read supports; balance sheet and money supply used interchangeably, when one is 24.7% below its peak and the other 6.3% above its own; runoff described as selling, which the published plan contradicts; and no mention that the FOMC announced the end of runoff on 29 October 2025.

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