After almost 10 years of shopping, the Fed gets ready to shrink its assets

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen on Wednesday discussed the Fed’s plans for its balance sheet. That’s the list of all the assets it owns, and it is huge: $4.5 trillion worth. The plan is to slowly shrink that down by a few billion dollars a month, starting soon. Here’s how the Fed came to own so much, and what owning less might mean for the economy.

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