Announcements

FRED has added 24 daily aggregates of the repurchase agreements and reverse repurchase agreements from the New York Fed. The data are broken down by the type of securities (Treasury securities, federal agency securities, and mortgage-backed securities) and by the term of the agreement (overnight and term).

The New York Fed under the authorization and direction of the Federal Open Market Committee conducts temporary open market operations. These operations involve short-term repurchase and reverse repurchase agreements that are designed to temporarily add or drain reserves available to the banking system and influence day-to-day trading in the federal funds market. A repurchase agreement (known as repo or RP) is a transaction in which the New York Fed buys a security from an eligible counterparty under an agreement to resell that security in the future. A reverse repurchase agreement (known as reverse repo or RRP) is a transaction in which the New York Fed sells a security to an eligible counterparty with an agreement to repurchase that same security at a specified price at a specific time in the future.

FRED has just added 384 monthly series from the Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey (TSSOS) and the Texas Retail Outlook Survey (TROS) published by Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The TSSOS, similar to surveys produced by the New York and Philadelphia Federal Reserve Banks, looks at the outlook of the service sector in the state of Texas. The TROS takes a deeper look into the retail portion of the service sector. The headline series look at the respondents’ outlook on sales (TROS) and revenue (TSSOS).

FRED has added 9 series on overnight trading in the federal funds market from the New York Fed.

The effective federal funds rate (EFFR) is calculated as a volume-weighted median of overnight federal funds transactions of selected money market rates. EFFR is the rate associated with transactions at the 50th percentile of transaction volume. Transaction volume in the federal fund market and selected other percentiles are also available. Intraday highs and lows and the standard deviation series are provided as discontinued due to the changes to the calculation of the EFFR implemented at the beginning of March.

FRED has added 2 daily series from the Board of Governors: interest on required reserves (IORR) and interest on excess reserves (IOER). As stated by the source, the IOER series gives the Federal Reserve an additional tool for the conduct of monetary policy.

The St. Louis Fed and the National Association of Realtors have reached a new data licensing agreement that will go into effect March 17, 2016:
Removed series: All annual existing home sales series will be removed from FRED and its associated services. All series under the Existing Home Sales and the Monthly Housing Affordability Index releases will be removed from ALFRED.
Revised series: Subject to availability, FRED will provide monthly series of seasonally adjusted existing home sales and monthly housing affordability indexes with observations from 2013 to the present. Monthly non-seasonally adjusted existing home sales series will be available in FRED for the prior 13 months.