WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced its current estimates of privately-held net marketable borrowing[1] for the January – March 2020 and April – June 2020 quarters:
- During the January – March 2020 quarter, Treasury expects to borrow $367 billion in privately-held net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-March cash balance of $400 billion. The borrowing estimate is $22 billion lower than announced in October 2019. The decrease in privately-held net marketable borrowing is primarily driven by changes to projections of fiscal activity resulting in a lower cash deficit somewhat offset by a lower beginning quarter cash balance.[2]
- During the April – June 2020 quarter, Treasury expects to pay down $56 billion in privately-held net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-June cash balance of $400 billion.
During the October – December 2019 quarter, Treasury borrowed $330 billion in privately-held net marketable debt and ended the quarter with a cash balance of $404 billion.[2] In October 2019, Treasury estimated privately-held net marketable borrowing of $352 billion and assumed an end-of-December cash balance of $410 billion. The decrease in borrowing resulted primarily from the lower end-of-quarter cash balance and higher net issuances of State and Local Government securities.
Additional financing details relating to Treasury’s Quarterly Refunding will be released at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, February 5, 2020.
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[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.
