Flows at a glance
Net Liquidity Tracker
Fed balance sheet minus Treasury General Account minus overnight reverse repo — the reserves available to the private banking system. Sourced directly from FRED.
There is a tide in the affairs of men. — Brutus, who mistimed it
For a decade, new money has run one way. Passive index funds and ETFs have taken in fresh cash every single year; actively managed funds have bled it in most years. The tide is in the flows before it shows in the assets.
What this shows — and doesn't. This measures where retail fund investors put new money, not who
sets prices. Fund-industry market share is not the same as market control: academic estimates put true
passive ownership at roughly one third of the US stock market, and many products labelled “index” track
narrow or custom benchmarks that behave like active management. Read as a flow signal, not a verdict on
market efficiency.
Source: Morningstar Direct, via PWL Capital, “The Passive vs. Active Fund Monitor,” year-end 2025
(US tables, all long-term mutual funds + ETFs, ex-money-market). Figures rounded.
Mind the Gap
Cross-border funding, in plain levels: first the dollar against a broad basket of currencies, then the yen, the pair under most strain — USD/JPY, the US and Japan 10-year yields, and the gap between them. Not a forecast — the raw ingredients of the yen carry trade, distinct from Net Liquidity Tracker (domestic bank reserves) and The Tide Table (US retail fund flows).