Broad Liquidity

  

Categories: Trading, Managed Funds

The most inclusive set of instruments used to define the term “money supply.”

As a child, Janet Yellen had three little piggy banks. The first one, made of ceramic, only contained cash until, one day, her pet Pug, Fido, knocked it off the kitchen counter, causing it to break and spill its contents across the floor.

So, Janet picked up all of the cash and added it to her second little piggy bank (made of plastic) which contained CDs (financial, not musical). Unbeknownst to Janet, when gathering the cash, she accidentally picked up some dog biscuit crumbs that were on the floor as well. Smelling this treat, Fido chewed through the second little piggy bank to get at his snack, leaving both the cash and CDs strewn across the floor.

Frustrated, Janet once again gathered her financial assets and added them to her third little piggy bank (made of forged steel), where she also kept her institutional money market funds.

While Janet’s system for organizing her financial instruments was ruined, she felt confident that Fido would not be able to disrupt the broad liquidity that now existed in her final piggy bank.

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Finance: What is Liquidity?64 Views

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Finance a la shmoop what is liquidity all right liquidity is

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not this but liquidity is this alright liquidity or being liquid is the ability [A pool of water]

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to pay for things with cash and in some parts of the world

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moose pelts most pelts get your moose belt here five for a dollar you might own 4,000 acres of [Man wearing a hat stood by his land]

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land in Alaska most your neighbors are well

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moose but when you go into your local Ford dealer to buy a Ford f-150 with the

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pimped-out tires and the intentionally off-road package the dealer wants to be [Man purchasing a Ford F150]

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paid in cash not in Moose pelts. if you sold those pelts for cash and then paid

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him and then you'd be liquid like the rest of the moose well in the real world [A table full of moose juice]

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liquid things are stuff like stocks and publicly traded bonds and anything you

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can find on eBay that'll turn into cash in less than a week or so original [Website showing Barbie doll and car for sale]

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edition of Avengers comic yeah the one where Iron Man and Captain America share

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their first kiss and that that one's as good as sold now on the flip side of the [Coin flipped]

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coin long term investments like funding two kids in a garage who are building a

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search algorithm with likely 10 years or more before an IPO [Kids using a computer in a garage]

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yeah those investments are highly illiquid as in the opposite of cash

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immediately on hand because there are rarely any other buyers of the private [Man playing the piano to a crowd]

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company shares you bought when you invested in them at least not buyers for

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a long illiquid time meaning that most people simply won't give you cash for

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shares in a company with no profits little don't know revenues or even no [Graph of profits and revenue for a company]

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website. So is your home liquid? err not so much but you can borrow against

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it liquidly in other words sometimes

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illiquid things can allow you to have liquidity you know like if you have a [Man stood by a home holding a mortgage paper]

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mortgage of say a hundred grand on a home that's probably worth well over

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half a million bucks then any bank will most likely let you borrow a couple

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hundred grand pretty much at any time you want [Man borrowing home owner more money]

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if you pledged the home as collateral in other words if you don't pay the bank

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back they're going to start parking in your garage and pickin out drapes for [Car reversing into garage]

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the living room as they repossess it to pay off the money you borrowed from them [Bank man repossessing the home]

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promising to pay it back well fortunately this isn't a chemistry course so

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there's no need to learn about the solidity and gas-idity[Examples of solids and gas]

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Up Next

Finance: What is a Liquid Market?
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A liquid market is a market featuring high trading volumes, i.e. investors actually want to put their cash to work.

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)