WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced its current estimates of privately-held net marketable borrowing [1] for the October - December 2020 and January - March 2021 quarters [2].
- During the October – December 2020 quarter, Treasury expects to borrow $617 billion in privately-held net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-December cash balance of $800 billion. The borrowing estimate is $599 billion lower than announced in August 2020. The decrease in privately-held net marketable borrowing is primarily driven by a high beginning-of-October cash balance, [3] partially offset by assumptions for higher expenditures in new legislation.
- During the January – March 2021 quarter, Treasury expects to borrow $1.127 trillion in privately-held net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-March cash balance of $800 billion.
During the July – September 2020 quarter, Treasury borrowed $454 billion in privately-held net marketable debt and ended the quarter with a cash balance of $1.782 trillion. In August 2020, Treasury estimated privately-held net marketable borrowing of $947 billion and assumed an end-of-September cash balance of $800 billion. The $493 billion decrease in borrowing resulted primarily from lower-than-assumed expenditures, partially offset by the increase in the cash balance.
Additional financing details relating to Treasury’s Quarterly Refunding will be released at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 4, 2020.
[1] Privately-held net marketable borrowing excludes rollovers (auction “add-ons”) of Treasury securities held in the Federal Reserve System Open Market Account (SOMA) but includes financing required due to SOMA redemptions. Secondary market purchases of Treasury securities by SOMA do not directly change net privately-held marketable borrowing but, all else equal, when the securities mature and assuming the Fed does not redeem any maturing securities, would increase the amount of cash raised for a given privately-held auction size by increasing the SOMA “add-on” amount.
[2] In light of the significant uncertainty surrounding the fiscal impact of potential COVID-19 related legislation, we have maintained the prior quarter’s $1 trillion assumption noted in our August 3, 2020, borrowing estimate. Actual borrowing may vary based on the fiscal impact of any new legislation.
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