Ellen Correia Golay on All-to-All Trading and Treasury Market Liquidity

David Beckworth (0:02)

Welcome to Macro Musings, where each week we pull back the curtain and take a closer look at the most important macroeconomic issues of the past, present, and future. I am your host, David Beckworth, a senior research fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. I'm glad you decided to join us.

Our guest today is Ellen Correia Golay. Ellen is a lead treasury advisor in the Markets Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. She's also a previous guest, so be sure to go back and check out her previous episode. But she joins us today to discuss all things treasury market and her ongoing work in that project. Ellen, welcome back to the show.

Ellen Correia Golay (0:45)

Thanks, David. I'm so happy to be back.

David Beckworth (0:48)

Well, it's great to have you on. We've had a number of your colleagues on this show, so it was time to bring you back. Now, last time you came on, I believe it was in 2024

And we talked about what you did there. But I want to go back to that because you're this senior lead advisor in Treasury Markets. A lot of interesting things happening. We'll talk about some of them today. So I'm sure you're very busy, but also it's very interesting to do what you do. So let me begin with this. You're an advisor, but you also lead the Treasury Markets Practice Group. Is that right?

Ellen Correia Golay (1:20)

That's right. And before I go any further, let me just say the standard fed disclaimer, the views I'm going to express today are my own and not those of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. But yes, my role is that I'm an advisor in the Treasury Markets area and the Markets Group here at the New York Fed. I do a few things. I provide senior subject matter expertise on Treasury Markets to the Open Market Trading Desk here. I also oversee the Treasury Market Practices Group, as you said, which is a group of market professionals that work to promote best practices in the Treasury Agency Debt and Agency MBS Market. And that group is sponsored by the New York Fed.

And then I'm also the New York Fed rep on the Interagency Working Group for Treasury Market Surveillance, which is IAWG for short. And that's a group of staff from the agencies that have responsibility for overseeing the Treasury Market, that work together to think about Treasury Market Resilience issues. And so that includes staff from the US Treasury, the Board of Governors, the SEC, CFTC, and then us, the New York Fed.

David Beckworth (2:18)

So you coordinate a lot of different agencies, a lot of different work, and get things done. And I want to retell the story when I first met you. Part of your job is to do outreach as well, like you're doing here with us, but you also participate in conferences. In fact, you've organized some really interesting conferences. You've written papers as well.

But I was actually in New York City in 2024, and I was actually up there recording some podcasts, Ellen, I don't know if I told you this last time, but I was actually recording a podcast with Rich Clarenet over at PIMCO.

Ellen Correia Golay (2:45)

Oh, I did, no.

David Beckworth (2:47)

Yeah, I went into this fancy building, had this nice grand piano and that downstairs you go up. I was just impressed by that alone, but then get to his office, of course, it's beautiful and we sit down with him. Then also that same day or the day after, we went to the Manhattan Institute, and at the time, Steven Moran was there as a fellow, interviewed him and then Dan Katz, who I believe is now at the IMF.

One of those evenings, I got a message from Bill Nelson, who's regular on this podcast, saying, hey, David, come on over and check out this thing called Money Marketeers, because I'll be discussing one of our favorite issues, the Fed's operating system. I said, okay, so I wandered over there, and then there was Mark Cabana on one side from Bank of America. He was defending the ample reserve, and then Bill, of course, was arguing for something different. Then you had to stand between the two and negotiate, moderate the two. I was impressed. I said, wow, she'd be a fantastic person for the podcast. I think I came up to you afterwards and we chatted at that time.

Ellen Correia Golay (3:45)

That's right.

David Beckworth (3:45)

A great memory.

Ellen Correia Golay (3:46)

Yes. Well, it was a really nice panel. It was great to hear from the two sides, Mark and Bill.