USD Rates: Liquidity & cross currency basis
Excess liquidity may lower cross currency basis swaps.
Group Research - Econs, Philip Wee10 Jul 2025
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Excess liquidity in the US system has been hovering around USD 1.5tn over the past few months. As QT slowed to a crawl (cap of USD 5bn a month on USTs and USD 35bn a month on MBS), the subsequent drawdown of liquidity has become negligible. That said, the more volatile SOFR and repo fixings over the past few months indicate that liquidity is nowhere near as flush as what we saw one year back. Moreover, we note that the drawdown in TGA (from close to USD 800bn in February to USD 330bn currently) helped to mask any residual tightness. However, since the debt ceiling has been lifted, we would reasonably expect around USD 300-400bn of net UST issuances over the coming three months. As the TGA gets rebuilt, excess liquidity (reserves and funds placed in the Fed’s RRP facility) should fall by an equivalent amount. This would take our measure of excess liquidity close to the USD 1tn mark where the Fed is likely to be comfortable and unlikely to want a further erosion of this buffer. Aside from pressures on the very front of USD curves, we suspect that cross currency basis swaps (USD vs EUR, SGD, JPY) might come under downward pressures. There has been a lot of paying interest in cross currency bases as investors sought carry. However, these levels look stretched. Some tactical receive in cross currency bases makes sense especially in the context that USD liquidity should tighten and the USD may be short-term oversold.




Eugene Leow

Senior Rates Strategist - G3 & Asia
[email protected]
 



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