> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://blackops-finance.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Fed Raised the Price of Money. The Quantity Keeps Setting Records. - URL: https://blackops-finance.ghost.io/the-fed-raised-the-price-of-money-the-quantity-keeps-setting-records/ - Published: 2026-09-22T15:15:38.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-22T15:15:38.000Z - Description: M2 stood at a record $23.218 trillion in July, up 5.4% over the year against a 2% inflation target. The August reading publishes this afternoon, and three Fed officials speak before it. - Author: Andrew Prochnow - Tags: Central Banks EYES ONLY SUBSCRIBER ONLY // DO NOT FORWARD WITHOUT PERMISSION BLACKOPS FINANCE COVERT FINANCIAL INTELLIGENCE. INTERCEPTED DAILY. 22 September 2026 DAILY DOSSIER MISSION BRIEF Updated 1115 ET Six days ago the Federal Reserve raised its policy rate for the first time since July 2023\. Here is a number that did not come up. The M2 money stock stood at **$23.218 trillion** in July, seasonally adjusted, on the Federal Reserve’s own H.6 release of 25 August. That is up from $23.115 trillion in June, an increase of $102.8 billion in a single month, and up from $22.026 trillion a year earlier. Over twelve months the money supply grew **5.4%**. The inflation target is 2%. The context around that figure is worth having. Reporting on the July release described it as the twenty-seventh consecutive month of expansion, roughly $1.43 trillion above the previous peak of March 2022, and an increase of $862.7 billion since the start of this year. Against a long-run average of about $700 billion a year since 2000, the 2026 pace annualises to something closer to **$1.48 trillion**, more than double. So the quantity of money has been expanding for more than two years, at roughly twice its historical rate, through the period in which the Federal Reserve described policy as restrictive and then tightened it further. The August reading publishes at 1:00 p.m. Eastern today, which is after this reaches you. Before that, three Federal Reserve officials speak: John Williams and Philip Jefferson this morning, Thomas Barkin this afternoon. They are the first to comment publicly since the committee raised rates. Hold the two instruments apart. The Federal Reserve sets the price of money directly and influences its quantity only at a distance, through the cost of credit and the run-off of its own balance sheet. M2 is an outcome, not a dial. But an outcome that has risen for twenty-seven months while the price was being raised is telling you the transmission is weaker than the rate decision implies. Raising the cost of borrowing is supposed to slow the creation of deposits. 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Money supply growth is not a reliable predictor of inflation on its own, and economists have argued about the link for fifty years. The relationship depends on velocity, which is not stable. A chunk of M2 growth reflects money moving between instruments rather than being created, particularly when depositors shift between bank accounts and money market funds. And the definitional change of 2020, which moved savings deposits into M1, makes long comparisons across that boundary treacherous. The monetarist case did, however, have a good run recently. M2 grew at an unprecedented rate through 2020 and 2021, inflation followed. M2 then contracted outright in 2022 and 2023, the first sustained fall since the 1930s, and inflation came down. Those who read the aggregate called both turns. That is not proof of a mechanism, but it is more than nothing, and it is why the current run deserves a look rather than a shrug. What makes this particular run awkward is the timing. The contraction of 2022 and 2023 coincided with the Fed raising rates hard and shrinking its balance sheet. The expansion since coincides with rates held flat from December last year until six days ago. The tightening cycle that reduced the quantity of money was the aggressive one. The pause that followed let it grow again, and grow faster than trend. Set that beside the inflation picture the committee is actually looking at. Headline consumer prices ran at 3.4% in August and core at 2.4%, while core producer prices held at 4.7%. The core measure the Fed’s target is written on, personal consumption expenditures, was last read at 3.3% for July and does not update until 30 September. Money growing at 5.4% is not inconsistent with any of those. It is consistent with all of them staying above target longer than the projections assume. Which brings it back to the balance sheet, the instrument nobody discussed last week. The Fed has two levers and used one. It raised the price of money and said nothing about the quantity. If the committee genuinely believes inflation is too high and has been for too long, as the chair said, the second lever is sitting there unmentioned for the second meeting running. Watch what the three speakers do not say today. Williams, Jefferson and Barkin will be asked about the path of rates, because that is what reporters ask. The more revealing question is whether any of them mentions the balance sheet, run-off, or the quantity of money at all. A committee that has raised rates once and intends to raise again would normally be thinking about both levers. A committee that mentions only one is telling you the second is not in play, which means the money supply keeps doing what it has done for twenty-seven months. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT One o’clock, and three speakers One o’clock today, the August money stock. The number to watch is not the level, which will be a record whatever happens, but whether the monthly increase is slower than July’s $102.8 billion. A deceleration would be the first sign the September move is landing. Another hundred billion says it is not. Listen to the Fed speakers for the balance sheet rather than the rate path. Williams and Jefferson this morning, Barkin this afternoon, the first comments since the hike. Any reference to run-off, reserves or the size of the portfolio is a bigger signal than another line about data dependence. Do not read money growth as a trade on its own. It has no reliable timing property and it says nothing about which assets benefit. What it does do is argue against the assumption that inflation returns to target on schedule, which is the assumption embedded in the projections the committee published last week. Note what the bond market is doing instead. The ten-year Treasury yield fell about two basis points to 4.93% this morning, reversing an early rise, as oil declined for a fifth consecutive session. The market is trading the Middle East, not the monetary aggregates, and that has been the pattern for two weeks. Mark 30 September. August personal consumption expenditures, the first update to the Fed’s own target index since July, and the last major reading before the committee meets again on 27 and 28 October. The exposure is a policy framework that measures one thing and moves another. The Federal Reserve raised the price of money six days ago, for the first time in three years, into a money supply that has expanded for twenty-seven consecutive months to a record $23.218 trillion and is growing at 5.4% a year against a 2% target. The 2026 pace is running at roughly twice the long-run average. None of that guarantees inflation stays high, because the link between money and prices is contested and velocity is not stable. But the committee has two instruments and spent last week discussing one, and the quantity of money has not stopped rising through a tightening cycle, a pause and now a hike. Editorial sources: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, H.6 Money Stock Measures, released 25 August 2026 (primary release), for M2 at $23,218.0 billion seasonally adjusted in July 2026, $23,115.2 billion in June 2026 and $22,025.5 billion in July 2025, from which the monthly increase of $102.8 billion and the twelve-month increase of 5.4% are derived; The Daily Hodl, 29 August 2026, for the characterisation of the July release as the twenty-seventh consecutive monthly expansion, the level standing about $1.43 trillion above the previous peak of March 2022, the increase of $862.7 billion since the start of 2026, and the long-run average expansion of about 6.3% a year and roughly $700 billion a year since 2000; Trading Economics economic calendar for the United States, 22 September 2026, for the August money supply release at 1:00 p.m. Eastern and the scheduled remarks by John Williams, Philip Jefferson and Thomas Barkin; Trading Economics, US 10-Year Treasury Note Yield, 22 September 2026, for the yield falling about two basis points to 4.93% as oil declined for a fifth consecutive session; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index Summary for August 2026, released 11 September 2026, and Producer Price Index News Release for August 2026, released 10 September 2026, for headline consumer prices at 3.4%, core at 2.4% and core producer prices at 4.7%; U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Personal Income and Outlays for July 2026, released 26 August 2026, for core personal consumption expenditures at 3.3% and the next release on 30 September 2026; Federal Reserve Board, FOMC calendar for the 27 and 28 October 2026 meeting, and September 2026 FOMC coverage for the quarter-point increase to 3.75%-4.00% and Chairman Kevin Warsh’s remark that inflation is too high and has been for too long. 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