USA: the Fed has conducted a new test of liquidity

The U.S. central bank (Fed) announced Tuesday it had made a new attempt to withdraw liquidity from the banking system.

The Fed has removed 180 million dollars by selling U.S. treasury bonds to banks, said a statement from the New York branch of the central bank, which led the operation said refinancing reversed.

The Federal Reserve had conducted a similar test ended in a withdrawal of liquidity from the same amount five days earlier. In both cases, all Treasury securities that were offered found buyers.

These operations "small scale" are intended to test the ability of the Fed system to remove the hundreds of billions of dollars it injected to allow the U.S. economy moving crisis.

By comparison, last refinancing operation carried inverted scale had allowed the Fed to get $ 20 billion in cash December 30, 2008.

Accounting consequences of its support to credit markets, real estate, the Fed has seen assets in its balance sheet double under the weight of financial stocks that gained mass (bonds, securities backed real estate ...) in exchange for cash that it enters the economy.

For the leaders of the central bank refinancing operations are reversed one of the instruments that will fly, in time, monetary policy to end the crisis, which will aim to remove gently injected funds into the financial system, which could eventually carry a high inflation.

Refinancing can actually reverse the central bank to deflate the stock and drain liquidity from the system.

The Fed made clear that its test withdrawals of cash were intended solely to prepare for better future.

Mr. Bernanke has made clear Monday that out of the crisis was not yet valid.