New Delhi, March 22 -- Around mid-April last year, the size of the US Federal Reserve's balance sheet peaked at around $8.97 trillion. In the aftermath of covid, the Fed's balance sheet size had doubled, as it printed money and pumped it into the financial system by buying bonds.

Since April, the Fed has been shrinking its balance sheet, by gradually sucking out the money that it had printed and pumped into the financial system. The hope was that the Fed's balance sheet would shrink by a trillion dollars by June. But that won't be happening now.

As of 8 March, the Fed's balance sheet size had shrunk to $8.34 trillion. But by 15 March, it had grown by close to $300 billion to $8.64 trillion.

This means that the Fed has started printing ...