The New York Fed undertakes certain small value open market transactions from time to time for the purpose of testing operational readiness to implement existing and potential policy directives from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The FOMC authorizes the New York Fed's Open Market Trading Desk (the Desk) to conduct these exercises to test its operational readiness in the Authorization for Domestic Open Market Operations and Authorization for Foreign Currency Operations.
In connection with these authorizations, the Desk intends to conduct one small value agency MBS purchase operation of the Uniform Mortgage-Backed Security (UMBS) TBA contract, which will occur on Thursday, April 4, 2019, beginning around 2:00 PM ET and ending at 2:30 PM ET. The total current face value of the purchase operation will not exceed $14 million.
Concurrent with this announcement, the Desk has published an operating schedule, detailing the date, time, operation type, security, and maximum purchase amount. The announcement and results will be posted on the New York Fed's website at the start and following the completion of the operation, respectively.