Monetary Base Contracted for 13th Month in March

(Neutral) In March 2017, the monetary base was $3.871 trillion. In absolute terms, the monetary base has increased each of the last three months. Compared with one year ago, in March the monetary base decreased 1.0 percent. This was the 13th straight month and the 15 month in the last 16 months that it has contracted. However, the rate of contraction in March was the slowest of any of those months. The month-over-month rate of ccontraction has decelerated rapidly since October 2016. As a result, the annual rate of change in the monetary base, now -5.4 percent, has contracted at relatively constant rate the last four months. This was the 13th consecutive month that the annual rate of change contracted. The annual rate of contraction remained near the fastest rate of contraction since the second leg of the Great Depression in the late 1930s.