Simon Potter Named Fed Portfolio Manager

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced today that Simon M. Potter, executive vice president and co-head of the Research and Statistics Group, has been named the new head of the Markets Group by New York Fed President William Dudley.

Most importantly, the Federal Open Market Committee also selected Potter as Manager of the System Open Market Account (SOMA).

SOMA consists of the Federal Reserve's domestic and foreign portfolios, in addition to reciprocal currency arrangements made with foreign official institutions.

The SOMA domestic portfolio involves U.S. Treasury and Federal Agency securities held on both an outright and a temporary basis. The SOMA foreign currency portfolio is made up of investments denominated in euros and yen.

Bob English emails:

Yes, the guy who admitted the great failure of the Fed to forecast the Great Recession is now in charge of rearranging (and soon to be stuffing) the Fed's already bloated balance sheet:

http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2011/11/the-failure-to-forecast-the-great-recession.html