• The amount of money sloshing around the U.S. economy shrank last year for the first time on record, a development that some economists believe bolsters the case for U.S. inflation pressures continuing to abate.
• The Federal Reserve’s main measure of the nation’s money stock – known as M2 money supply – slid for a fifth straight month in December, dropping by a record $147.4 billion to a seasonally adjusted $21.2 trillion from the month before, data from the U.S. central bank released this week showed.
• From a year earlier, the volume of cash, coins, checking and savings deposits, other small time deposits and cash parked in money market funds fell by nearly $300 billion and has fallen by more than $530 billion since last March when the Fed kicked off its aggressive – and ongoing – process to drain liquidity from the economy to combat high inflation.