To: Investment Committee
From: Senior Economist
Date: August 12, 2026
Subject: Federal Reserve District Research Briefing
Based on the recent monitoring window, the volume of actionable research is low, with several entries being null or outside our primary geographic mandate. I have filtered for the most analytically relevant data points below:
1. [NY] How Distressed Are Consumers? Reconciling Diverging Credit Card Delinquency Measures
The New York Fed reports a slight decline in total household debt balances ($13 billion) for Q2 2026. This suggests that despite prolonged restrictive rates, the consumer is showing surprising resilience or is actively deleveraging, which may reduce the probability of a systemic credit event in the near term.
2. [NY] Stripping STRIPs Trading Activity
This research addresses gaps in FINRA’s reporting of U.S. Treasury STRIPs trading volumes. For our desk, this highlights a persistent lack of transparency in specific Treasury derivatives, suggesting that liquidity risk in the zero-coupon market may be higher than public aggregate data implies.
3. [STL] The Erosion of Public Capital in Portugal
While focused on a specific EU member, this analysis of public capital decay serves as a cautionary case study on the long-term drag of underinvestment in infrastructure. It provides a proxy for assessing how fiscal austerity in periphery markets can lead to structural growth impairment, impacting our sovereign debt valuations in the Eurozone.
Synthesis:
The data indicates a stabilizing U.S. consumer base and a slight trend toward deleveraging, mitigating immediate recessionary fears. However, persistent opacity in Treasury market microstructure and structural decay in European public capital suggest lingering tail risks in liquidity and international growth.
The analysis examines household debt trends, noting a slight decline in total balances alongside stable delinquency rates across most products. It specifically seeks to reconcile diverging measures of credit card distress to assess overall consumer financial health.
Total debt balances declined slightly by $13 billion in the second quarter of 2026, according to the latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit from the New York Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data. Mortgage and student loan balances saw a small decline, while there were increases across other debt products. Delinquency rates across most products remained fairly stable. Still, between 2022:Q3 and 2026:Q1, the percentage of credit card balances 90+ days delinquent rose from 7.6 percent to 12.8 percent, prompting concerns that Americans are falling behind on their debt payments at rate
The paper examines the reporting gaps in FINRA's aggregate trading volume for U.S. Treasury securities, specifically focusing on the exclusion of STRIPS. It analyzes how this lack of transparency affects the understanding of Treasury market liquidity.
In March 2020, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) began reporting aggregate trading volume for securities issued by the U.S. Treasury Department. The public data do not, however, include information about the trading activity of Separate Trading of Registered Interest and Principal of Securities (STRIPS). STRIPS are created from existing Treasury securities and offer risk […]
The research analyzes the decline of public infrastructure and capital investment in Portugal. It explores the long-term implications of this erosion on national productivity and economic growth.
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