The U.S. Treasury is taking steps to strengthen the resilience of the Treasury debt market and private money market and bond funds, but the U.S. financial system is functioning well despite elevated global volatility, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Monday.
Yellen, speaking to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s (SIFMA) annual meeting in New York, acknowledged that liquidity in the vast Treasuries market has diminished, raising costs, but this and other parts of the U.S. financial system have not been a source of financial instability.
“It’s not unexpected that in a world of increased volatility that liquidity should diminish somewhat or the cost of transacting might rise a little, but my assessment is that markets are well functioning, trading volumes are large, traders are not having difficulty executing trades,” Yellen said….