The lessons of the past year for central bank reserve managers – overseers of $7,000bn in foreign exchange assets, four times the amount managed by their flashier cousins, the sovereign wealth funds – stand in stark contrast to the convictions they developed over the prior decade. As central bank forex assets quadrupled in the 10 years following the emerging markets crisis of 1998, reserve liquidity was deemed excessive and more diversified investment strategies compelling. With growing confidence, sovereign assets were shifted away from the US dollar, government bonds and gold to higher-yielding currencies, credit and even equity instruments. The government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and by second derivative, US homeowners) were primary beneficiaries of this trend; central bank holdings of GSE debt grew from about $100bn in 2001 to more than $1,000bn at their peak last year. Commercial banks also swelled with central bank deposits rising from $400bn to $1,400bn over the same period.
央行儲備資產管理者過去一年得到的教訓，與此前10年形成的信念形成了鮮明對比。央行儲備管理者管理著7萬億美元外匯資產，是看上去更為浮華的姊妹機構——主權財富基金——所管理資產規模的4倍。在1998年新興市場危機爆發后的10年間，央行外匯資產增加了3倍，儲備資產的流動性被視為過剩，更多元化的投資戰略變得更具說服力。由于信心不斷增強，主權資產從美元、政府債券和黃金轉向高收益貨幣、信貸甚至是股權工具。政府支持企業(GSE)房利美(Fannie Mae)和房地美(Freddie Mac)（進一步還可以衍生到美國的房屋所有者）是這一趨勢的主要受益者；在去年的鼎盛時期，央行所持GSE債務從2001年的約1000億美元升至逾1萬億美元。同期，商業銀行在央行的存款從4000億美元升至1.4萬億美元。