Move over Quantitative Easing. Quantitative Tightening is the order of the day. Money printing is in reverse and balance sheet reduction — selling the government bonds bought during the QE era — is now a focus of the Bank of England.
Other central banks are treading gently. Selling bonds on this scale has never been done before. Nor has it been tried when markets have had to digest the ramifications of both high inflation and substantial rate hikes. Prices for bonds are today much lower (and yields higher) than when the central banks bought the same securities previously. So understandably, most central banks have been proceeding slowly.
