Crane Data Subscribers
Almost Half of Commercial Paper Declines Due to Seasonal Adjustments. The Federal Reserve's weekly commercial paper outstandings statistics have unsurprisingly attracted attention recently due to recent market turmoil. But headlines have focused on the Fed's "seasonally adjusted" series, which make the market declines appear much worse than the "not seasonally adjusted" series. Adjusted CP totals showed a $259.6 billion, or 12%, decline in August vs. a $241.2 billion, or 11%, unadjusted decline. The past 4 weeks' adjusted numbers show a $124 billion decline, or 6.2%, vs. a 43% lower $71.1 billion decline, 3.6%, when not adjusted. The week ended Sept. 12 even showed an unadjusted gain of $4.1 billion and the most recent week showed a decline of a mere $6.2 billion, with the non asset-backed component rising modestly.
