Quantitative Tightening with Slow-Moving Capital

We document shifts in investor composition during quantitative tightening, which suggest that investors adjust their portfolios at different speeds. To understand its implications for bond valuation, we develop a general equilibrium model which highlights the dynamic interaction between heterogeneous investors. In the model, long-term investors have higher risk-taking capacity, but face a portfolio adjustment cost; liquidity traders have lower risk-taking capacity, but can trade freely. Our model predicts a novel overshooting pattern: when the central bank unwinds its bond purchase, slow adjustment by long-term investors requires liquidity traders to absorb the imbalance, who demand a higher risk premium that creates excessive bond price decline and volatility in the short run. As a result, quantitative tightening is not simply a symmetric reversal of quantitative easing.