Monday, September 7, 2020

M5

M5 is a measure of money that includes M2, plus debt held by the public, less Treasuries owned by the Fed.  Here is the current measure:

As of 8/31/2020:
M2 (as of 8/24/20) = 18,386.1
Pub Debt (as of 8/31/20) = 20,822
Fed held (as of 9/2/20) = -4,386.6
-----------------------
Total: 34,821.5

The last time I calculated this, on 12/1/13, it showed 21,018.7.

On the St Louis Fed site, it is calculated as FYGFDPUN/1000 + M2 - (TREAST/1000).

What does this mean?  It could be used to calculate inflation more accurately than CPI, which is heavily manipulated.

This could include some double-counting, for example Customer 1 has $1000 in a savings account in XYZ bank, which invests that money in short-term Treasury bills, but overall it is a pretty good measure.


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