US Federal Reserve balance sheet reaches $6.7T as of August 5

The Federal Reserve’s total assets clocked in at $6.749 trillion as of August 5, holding remarkably steady in a narrow range since the central bank stopped shrinking its balance sheet late last year. The Fed’s balance sheet peaked at roughly $8.9 trillion in 2022, swollen by the massive bond-buying spree that followed the pandemic. Then came quantitative tightening, the process of letting bonds mature without reinvesting the proceeds. That program ran until December 1, 2025, by which point total assets had declined to approximately $6.5 trillion. Since QT ended, the balance sheet has crept up slightly through what the Fed calls “reserve management purchases,” basically routine operations designed to keep bank reserves at adequate levels. The result is the $6.738T to $6.749T range we’ve seen in recent weeks. FRED data showed total assets at $6.738 trillion as of July 29, with the August 5 reading ticking up marginally to $6.749 trillion. The composition tells a story of its own. As of late 2025, the Fed held approximately $4.2 trillion in Treasury securities and around $2.1 trillion in mortgage-backed securities. On the liability side, bank reserves account for close to $2.9 trillio...