Brian Chappatta, Columnist

The Fed’s $13 Billion Surprise

If you needed more proof that pensions have been buying Treasuries, here it is.

September 24, 2018 at 5:00 AM EDT

Brian Chappatta is managing editor of Bloomberg News' wealth group. He was previously team leader of billionaires coverage in the Americas. Before that he was a Bloomberg Opinion markets and finance columnist and a bonds reporter for Bloomberg News.

Stunned.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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The Federal Reserve officially stated the obvious: U.S. corporate pension funds have been big buyers of U.S. Treasuries.

This is only newsworthy because the central bank had been seemingly unaware of this glaring trend until late last week. In its flow of funds report released Sept. 20, the Fed showed that corporate defined-benefit pension plans purchased more than $13 billion of Treasury securities in the first quarter. To put it mildly, that’s not even close to the roughly $75 million of net selling reported in the same data back in June.

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