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American International Group attributed a first-quarter loss to the Japan earthquake and tsunami, the New Zealand earthquake and Australian floods.

The New York insurance company on Thursday reported a loss attributable to common shareholders of $543 million, or 35 cents a share, compared with net income of $359 million, or $2 payday loan.66 a share, a year earlier.

Its revenue fell to $17.44 billion from $18.56 billion last year.

AIG’s stock fell 85 cents to $30.79 in after-hours trading.

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Reinsurance Group of America reported $160.8 million in profits for the March quarter, up from $122.4 million a year earlier.

Profits per share were $2.18 in the recent quarter, up from $1.64 a year ago.

Premiums jumped 7 percent, including a 3 percent contribution from foreign currency exchange.  The company said claims were in line with expectations, despite the earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand no fax pay day loan. Those disasters cost the company $6.5 million in claims.

Reinsurance Group, based in Chesterfield, is among the largest global providers of life reinsurance.

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Scuffles between protesters and security guards marred BP’s first annual shareholder meeting since the Gulf oil spill, with shrimpers blocked from entering Thursday’s meeting to demand more compensation.

The protesters included five Gulf Coast residents who had planned to tell investors about the loss of their livelihoods and health problems after the spill. Outside the building, separate groups demonstrated over BP’s polluting tar sands project in Canada and labor disputes in Britain.

Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation fisherwoman from Seadrift, Texas, was arrested after evading security to enter the foyer of the building, where she covered herself in a dark syrup to represent oil.

“I’ve come all the way here from the Gulf Coast,” Wilson said. “My community is gone, and they won’t let me in.”

Inside the venue, hundreds of BP PLC investors who have watched the company lose a quarter of its market value _ some $55 billion _ over the past year and lost their dividend payments questioned board members about excessive executive pay packets and a lack of transparency on safety improvements.

But there was also support for BP’s board from some quarters, with new Chief Executive Bob Dudley frequently winning smatterings of applause for his comments, including his opening statement that “BP remains a great company with a great history and I believe a great future.”

“Not every company gets such an opportunity and we don’t intend to squander it,” he added, stressing the company’s three priorities post-spill as strengthening safety, winning back the company’s reputation and restoring long-term value for shareholders.

Dudley and his fellow board members are battling to convince some institutional shareholders that they have a firm grip on the company’s future after a year that began with the Gulf of Mexico disaster and is ending with a botched major oil exploration deal in Russia.

The company gained some critical breathing room on the Russian problem just hours before the meeting when Russia’s OAO Rosneft agreed to move the deadline to complete a $16 billion share swap with BP from Thursday to May 16.

The deal was to cement BP’s move forward from the Gulf spill and show it no longer needed to rely so heavily on the United States, where it is still barred from drilling in the Gulf. The initiative ran aground after a quartet of Russian billionaires, BP’s partners in the older TNK-BP venture, won an injunction in the London courts, claiming the new deal violates their own agreement with the London-based company.

Rosneft spokesman Rustam Kazharov declined to comment when asked whether the company planned to look for another partner to replace BP in the deal to explore the Russian sector of the Arctic.

In London, Dudley and Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg dodged questions from shareholders about why the company hadn’t consulted more fully with TNK-BP before announcing the Rosneft deal.

“I think we have to be realistic,” Svanberg said when asked if BP was confident of coming to an agreement with TNK-BP to lift the injunction. “We are in the middle of a process involving three parties and exactly how that will unfold I don’t think we should speculate here, but I assure you we will do what we can to land it in a good way.”

Dudley said BP had made a joint offer with Rosneft for TNK-BP, but said BP would not offer large amounts of shares to resolve the dispute, particularly as BP believed it had not violated its agreement with TNK-BP.

As a mark of respect for the upcoming anniversary of the Macondo well explosion, Dudley read out the names of the 11 men killed in the April 20 incident that has so far cost BP some $40 billion _ and former CEO Tony Hayward his job.

Outside the building, a rowdy group of local union members demonstrated over a dispute at a BP-owned factory in Hull in northern England, banging drums and blowing horns as they were watched by police.

More protesters did gain entry to the meeting and tried to access the stage during a discussion of the company’s controversial tar sands project in Canada. They were dragged away by security.

Byron Encalade, president of the Louisiana Oystermen Association and one of those denied entry, had said he wanted to object to the compensation process, claiming many oystermen have been denied payments or given insufficient payouts.

“We’ve not been made whole: our fishing grounds have been depleted, our oysters are dead and we’re not receiving the funds we need to support and sustain ourselves,” Encalade said. “BP says they are paying out all this money. Where is it?”

Dudley said management intended to recommend to the board the appointment of an external expert to implement the recommendations of an internal report into the spill _ as it did after the deadly Texas City refinery explosion in 2005 in which 15 people died.

“We’re finding it isn’t so easy to find someone. We want to make sure that person is independent and experienced,” Dudley said.

Dudley also acknowledged unhappiness with a lack of detail about safety improvements in the company’s annual report, agreeing information was “light” but would be stronger this year.

Before the meeting, Calpers, the biggest U.S. public pension fund, and the Florida State Board of Administration said they would join other smaller U.S. and European religious and ethical funds in voting against the reappointment of Bill Castell, the head of the safety, ethics and environment assurance committee. The two state pension boards together own some 0.4 percent of BP’s stock.

Pirc, the investor advice service, and the Association of British Insurers have issued warnings about excessive pay packages for two BP executives. Iain Conn, BP’s head of refining and Chief Financial Officer Byron Grote are receiving $505,000 and $621,000 for work not related to the oil spill.

Hayward also grabbed headlines with a $17.9 million pension, $1.6 million payoff and about $13 million in share options despite a series of public gaffes that led to his ceding the CEO post to Dudley.

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A strong aftershock ripped through northeastern Japan, killing two, injuring dozens and piling misery on a region still buried under the rubble of last month’s devastating tsunami.

The quake late Thursday was the strongest tremor since the March 11 jumbo and did some damage, but it appeared to have spared the area’s nuclear power plants. The Fukushima Dai-ichi complex _ where workers have been frantically trying to cool overheated reactors since they lost cooling systems last month _ reported no new abnormalities. Other facilities switched to diesel generators after the 7.1-magnitude quake knocked out power to much of the area.

Many people in the area have lived without water and electricity for nearly a month, and the latest tremor sunk more homes into blackness: In total, around 3.6 million households _ about 60 percent of residents in the area _ were dark Friday, said Souta Nozu, a spokesman for Tohoku-Electric Power Co., which serves northern Japan.

Matsuko Ito, who has been living in a shelter in Natori since the tsunami, said there’s no getting used to the terror of being awoken by shaking.

“I was almost as scared as much as last time,” said the 64-year-old while smoking a cigarette outside.

She said she started screaming when the quake struck around 11:30 p.m.

“Something has changed,” she said. “The world feels strange now. Even the way the clouds move isn’t right.”

Thursday’s quake initiated a tsunami warning of its own, but it was later canceled. Two people were killed, fire department spokesman Junichi Sawada reported Friday. A 79-year-old man died of shock and a woman in her 60s was killed when power was cut to her oxygen tank. More than 130 people were injured, according to the national police agency.

The temblor’s epicenter was in about the same location as the March 11 tremor, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from Sendai, an industrial city on the eastern coast, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was strong enough to shake buildings as far away as Tokyo, about 200 miles (330 kilometers) from the epicenter.

At a Toyota dealership in Sendai, most of a two-story show window was shattered, with thick shards heaped in front of the building payday advances. Items fell off store shelves and a large automated teller machine crept across the floor at a FamilyMart convenience store. Police directed cars through intersections throughout the city because traffic lights were out.

While the city is far enough inland that it largely escaped tsunami damage, people there lived without gas and electricity for weeks. Within an hour of Thursday’s quake, they rushed convenience stores and cleared shelves of ice, water and instant noodles _ items that were in short supply after the bigger quake.

Japan’s nuclear safety agency said nuclear facilities along the northeastern coast were under control after backup generators kicked in at two _ Rokkasho and Higashidori _ that lost power.

The operator of the tsunami-ravaged Dai-ichi plant said there was no sign the aftershock had caused new problems there. Workers retreated to a quake-resistant shelter in the complex, with no injuries.

The aftershock knocked out two of three power lines at the Onagawa nuclear power plant north of Sendai, which has been shut down since the tsunami. One remaining line was supplying power to the plant and radiation monitoring devices detected no abnormalities. The plant’s spent fuel pools briefly lost cooling capacity, but it resumed because a power line was available for electricity.

“It’s the way it’s supposed to work if power is lost for any reason,” said David Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project for the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists. Since the tsunami warning was canceled 90 minutes after it was issued, there was no reason to believe the facilities’ diesel generators would fail like the ones at the stricken Fukushima plant. The massive wave knocked out cooling systems and triggered a series of mishaps that have left workers struggling to stop radioactivity from spewing nearly a month later.

“That was really the blow that the plant didn’t recover from,” Lochbaum said.

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New Zealand business confidence slumped to a two-year low in the first quarter after an earthquake killed at least 170 people and forced companies to close in the nation’s second-largest city.

A net 27 percent of 690 companies surveyed expect the economy will deteriorate over the next six months, from a net 8 percent expecting an improvement in the previous survey, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research said today in Wellington. The net figure, which isn’t adjusted for seasonal patterns, is calculated by subtracting the proportion of pessimists from optimists.

Falling confidence adds to signs the economy will experience little growth in the first half of the year after the magnitude 6.3 earthquake that struck Christchurch in the province of Canterbury on Feb. 22. Central bank Governor Alan Bollard to cut the official cash rate by a half a percentage point last month to aid a recovery from the temblor.

“The earthquake was disruptive but outside of that the economy was flat,” Shamubeel Eaqub, principal economist at the institute, told reporters today. “Profits are still very weak. Businesses are getting a huge squeeze on their margins.”

Ten of 14 economists surveyed last month forecast Bollard will keep the benchmark interest rate at 2.5 percent until next year. Four expect an increase in the fourth quarter. Eaqub doesn’t expect a move until 2012.

Profitability

Businesses reported that sales and profits declined in the first quarter, adding to signs of minimal growth in gross domestic product, today’s report showed. The economy shrank 0.2 percent in the third quarter last year and grew 0.2 percent in the final three months of the year.

A net 6 percent of companies said trading weakened in the three months ended March 31, the institute said payday loan lenders in states. A net 28 percent said profits fell, increasing from 21 percent three months earlier.

Sentiment toward the second quarter is also weak, according to today’s survey. A net 22 percent of firms expect profits will fall, from 5 percent in the previous survey.

Investment intentions remain flat, today’s report showed. A net 7 percent planned to spend less on buildings in the next quarter from 8 percent. Employment intentions are also little changed.

Economists monitor the institute’s report to gauge whether inflation pressures will emerge. Bollard said last month he expected medium-term inflation to stay within the 1 percent to 3 percent range that he is required to target.

Rising Costs

Current inflation pressures are subdued because demand is weak and firms cannot pass on rising costs, Eaqub said.

Forty-four percent of companies expect costs will increase in the second quarter while 14 percent were able to raise prices in the first quarter, today’s report showed. A net 14 percent of firms plan to raise prices over the next three months.

“Profitability is being eroded by rising costs,” Eaqub said. “Building cost pressures and a tightening labor market suggest medium-term inflationary pressures are emerging.”

A net 10 percent of companies said it is harder to find skilled workers, up from 7 percent in the previous survey.

Capacity utilization, a measure of factory usage, was little changed at 89.4 percent in the first quarter from 89.0 percent in the previous three months.

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Boeing Co. benefited from $5.3 billion in prohibited state and federal government subsidies, a panel of World Trade Organization judges determined in a report issued Thursday.

But the total amount that will need to be remedied by the U.S. in the trade case is about half that: $2.7 billion, since the U.S. government has already stopped providing Chicago-based Boeing billions of dollars in export-related tax breaks judged to be illegal by the WTO, U.S. officials said.

The ruling is the latest volley in a trade war between the United States and European Union that started in 2005, when the U.S. formally accused European governments of illegally subsidizing every commercial jetliner developed by France-based Airbus SAS. The Europeans countered with a 2006 complaint claiming that Boeing enjoyed substantial hidden state and federal support.

Both sides declared victory from the latest WTO report. Airbus praised the panel’s finding that Boeing could not have launched the 787 Dreamliner without prohibited subsidies.

U.S. officials trumpeted the WTO’s earlier finding that four European governments had provided far greater illegal aid to Airbus: $20 billion, $15 billion of which was impermissible because it was lent to the aircraft manufacturer at below-market rates.

The panel found that much of the $19.1 billion in Boeing aid questioned by the European Commission in its 2006 case against the U.S. either didn’t violate international trade law or didn’t cause commercial harm to France-based Airbus

Chrysler Group LLC, the U.S. automaker operated by Fiat SpA, is pushing its U.S. dealers to hire more service workers and salesmen to help the company boost vehicle sales 32 percent this year.

“While it’s still early in the calendar year, now is the time to act,” Peter Grady, vice president of Chrysler’s network development and fleet, said in a memo to dealers. “Hiring additional personnel in preparation for the spring market is essential for success in 2011.”

Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne is targeting global sales this year of 2 million vehicles, including 1.57 million in the U.S. The automaker has begun selling new or revamped models including the Chrysler 300 sedan, Dodge Durango sport-utility vehicle and Fiat 500 subcompact.

Chrysler, aiming to boost U.S. deliveries by 45 percent this year, has been working with its 2,311 dealers in the market to extend store hours and add quick-lube services.

In February, Marchionne said 80 percent of the automaker’s U.S. dealers were operating profitability, the highest percentage since 2000 absolutely free credit score.

“After analyzing our competitors and your 2010 financials, we believe there’s still some work to do,” Grady told dealers in the memo.

Chrysler’s sales staff productivity was “considerably lower” than competitors’ and the number of salesmen fell 10 percent last year while rivals increased forces, he said.

“Chrysler underperforms by almost two vehicles per month per salesperson,” Grady said.

Chrysler’s service advisers generated $8,500 less each month in sales than their General Motors Co. counterparts and $2,500 less than those at Toyota Motor Corp., Grady said.

Chrysler dealers in recent months have hired 600 sales consultants, 500 technicians and almost 100 service advisers, Grady said. He said metropolitan dealerships should hire six additional sales consultants, three technicians and one service adviser.

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The Portuguese government forecasts the economy will contract this year as investment declines and it cuts spending to narrow the budget deficit.

Gross domestic product will fall 0.9 percent in 2011 following a 1.4 percent increase last year, according to the Portugal’s stability and growth program released last night. The forecast is less than the 1.3 percent contraction predicted by the Bank of Portugal in January and compares with a forecast for 0.2 percent growth included in the budget released last year. The new plan says the economy will expand 0.3 percent next year, 0.7 percent in 2013 and 1.3 percent in 2014.

The government forecasts debt as a percentage of GDP will climb to 87.9 percent in 2011 and 88.1 percent in 2012 from 82.4 percent last year. That ratio will start falling in 2013 to 87.4 percent, and will drop to 85.3 percent the following year, according to the plan. The government set a target for a budget deficit of 4.6 percent of GDP in 2011, and aims to reach the EU limit of 3 percent in 2012 and a gap of 2 percent in 2014.

Portugal is raising taxes and implementing the deepest spending cuts in more than three decades, aiming to convince investors it can narrow its budget gap, curb its debt and avoid a bailout after the Greek debt crisis led to a surge in borrowing costs for high-deficit euro nations.

Risk Premium

The spread between Portuguese and German 10-year bond yields fell 1 basis point to 412 basis points today after reaching a euro-era record of 484 on Nov. 11. Ireland in November became the second euro country after Greece to seek a bailout and the first to request aid from the European Financial Stability Facility. Portugal’s 10-year bond yield climbed to a euro-era record of 7.70 percent on March 9, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The stability and growth program forecasts the average rate of Portugal’s 10-year bonds will be 6.8 percent in 2011, 6.9 percent in 2012, 6.8 percent in 2013 and 6.5 percent in 2014.

Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates had said his government is available to discuss its deficit-cutting measures with opposition parties as he tries to avoid a “political crisis,” early elections and the possibility of a bailout. “If parliament decides on a motion against the stability and growth program, that means the government is not in a condition to make commitments internationally,” Socrates said on March 15.

Additional Measures

Jaime Gama, the Portuguese parliament’s president, scheduled a meeting of parliamentary party leaders for 10 a.m. today.

Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos on March 11 presented additional deficit-cutting measures equal to 4 paydayloans.5 percent of GDP over the three years through 2013, including a reduction in pensions of more than 1,500 euros ($2,134) a month and further cuts in tax benefits. Teixeira dos Santos said yesterday that a political crisis would make it more difficult for the country to access financial markets.

Portugal’s Social Democratic Party, the biggest opposition group in parliament, has said it does not back the new measures presented by the government. The Social Democrats have said that they support Portugal’s plan to reduce its budget gap and meet the deficit targets.

Socrates became prime minister in 2005 and his Socialist Party won re-election in 2009 without a majority in parliament. The Social Democrats agreed in October to let the government’s 2011 budget proposal pass in parliament by abstaining.

Bond Redemptions

Portugal intends to sell as much as 20 billion euros of bonds this year to finance its budget and cover the cost of maturing debt. Portugal faces bond redemptions in April and June worth about 9 billion euros in total. It also faces bill maturities in July, August, September, October and November.

The government is already trimming the wage bill by 5 percent for public-sector workers earning more than 1,500 euros a month, freezing hiring and raising value-added sales tax by 2 percentage points to 23 percent to help narrow a deficit that amounted to 9.3 percent of GDP in 2009, the fourth-biggest in the euro region after Ireland, Greece and Spain.

Portugal will report a 2010 budget deficit of about 7 percent of GDP, narrower than the 7.3 percent gap the government had forecast,Socrates said on Jan. 28.

Asset Sales

The government is estimating it will raise 2.18 billion euros in revenue from the sale of state assets this year. To strengthen the financial system, banks should have a core Tier 1 capital ratio of 8 percent by the end of 2011, according to the plan released yesterday.

GDP fell 0.3 percent in the final three months of 2010, the first quarterly contraction in a year. Portugal’s unemployment rose to 11.1 percent in the fourth quarter, the highest since at least 1998.

The government forecasts unemployment will rise to 11.2 percent this year from 10.8 percent in 2010, and inflation will accelerate to 2.7 percent in 2011 from 1.4 percent last year.

Portugal’s economic growth has averaged less than 1 percent a year in the past decade, one of Europe’s weakest growth rates.

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Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao pledged to curb inflation and punish abuse of power in an online forum as Chinese police blanketed Beijing and Shanghai to head off planned protests inspired by revolts in the Middle East.

The leadership is “determined” to punish corruption, which is too concentrated in government and key officials, Wen said in an online interview with Chinese citizens on the site of the official Xinhua News Agency. Wen promised to boost food supplies to hold down costs, and to tackle surging property prices that have put home ownership beyond the reach of many.

Growing inequality is a threat to social stability, Wen said in the discussion, which comes as the ruling Communist Party prepares for the annual meeting of China’s legislature. Wen’s pledges also came as online postings called for the second week for rallies in major cities to protest corruption and misrule, inspired by the “jasmine revolutions” that have led to the overthrow of leaders in Tunisia and Egypt.

Hundreds of Chinese police and more than 100 vehicles today patrolled Wangfujing Street, one of Beijing’s busiest shopping streets and the site of one planned rally. Several journalists were forcibly removed from the area by police.

In Shanghai, at least seven people were bundled into police vans outside a cinema near People’s Square, one of at least 27 planned protest sites around the country. At least 23 police vehicles were stationed around the Peace Cinema in the shopping area of People’s Square.

Sunday Rallies

An open letter posted on U.S.-based website Boxun.com and circulated on the Internet urged people to gather at both locations, as well as others in cities nationwide, at 2 p.m. today. The letter calls for rallies to take place every Sunday at that time in cities from Beijing to Wuhan to Hangzhou.

High food prices, unemployment and anger over corruption helped spark protests that toppled Tunisia’s Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and fueled rebellion against Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi.

The China rallies were first called for Feb. 20. Scores of Chinese police gathered at the protest sites, which included a Beijing McDonald’s Corp. restaurant, to quell demonstrations credit reports free. Hundreds of people were present at the rally, though only a handful actively participated, the Associated Press reported.

Containing Unrest

Zhao Qizheng, who heads the foreign affairs committee of the Chinese People’s Consultative Conference, said the idea that there would be a jasmine revolution in China was “absurd,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Feb. 24. Responding to the Feb. 20 protests, Ma Zhaoxu, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, emphasized China’s economic growth and success in raising living standards.

The government’s reaction reflects its decades-long effort to keep unrest in check through a combination of economic growth, social reforms and political repression, said Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong.

The open letter addressed to the Chinese People listed a series of grievances including official corruption, a widening disparity between rich and poor, rising inflation, expensive housing and a poor health-care system.

In his two-hour discussion, Wen said China will curb inflation by controlling liquidity, by boosting agricultural production and by punishing hoarding and price manipulation, according to the website of the official Xinhua News Agency. Inflation in China, home to 150 million people living on less than $1 a day, accelerated to 4.9 percent in January from 4.6 percent in December as prices excluding food rose the most in at least six years.

Curb Speculation

Wen also said the country has sufficient grain and foreign currency reserves to control food prices. China will also continue efforts to curb speculation in the property market and will use legal and economic measures against hoarding of land, Wen said.

Home prices in January rose in 68 of the 70 Chinese cities tracked by the statistics bureau, defying measures such as higher down-payment requirements and limits on property purchases issued by the government to curb increases. Wen said the measures are becoming more effective and he’s confident of controlling prices.

–Michael Forsythe, John Liu and William Bi in Beijing, Stephanie Wong in Shanghai and Debra Mao in Hong Kong. Editor: Ben Richardson

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Brian Sack, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s markets group chief, said the central bank’s asset-purchase program has supported the economic recovery by easing market conditions.

“The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet actions have helped to make broader financial conditions more accommodative,” Sack said in the text of remarks given in Philadelphia today. “Risky asset prices such as equities have risen at a rapid pace, and credit spreads and measures of credit availability have continued to ease.”

Sack is among Fed officials defending the central bank’s decision last month to press ahead with its plan to buy $600 billion of bonds through June in an effort to create jobs. Republican Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee, today repeated his criticism of the purchases, saying they risk creating asset-price bubbles and fueling inflation.

“The recent asset purchases by the Federal Reserve have had helpful effects on financial conditions and have been implemented in a manner that has been flexible enough to avoid any significant negative consequences for the functioning of financial markets,” Sack said.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in testimony before the House budget panel today that the unemployment rate is likely to remain high “for some time” even after its biggest two-month drop since 1958, to 9 percent in January. Joblessness rose above 9 percent in May 2009, beginning the longest period of unemployment at that level or higher since monthly records began in 1948.

Adding to Concerns

Ryan today said an increase in long-term Treasury yields this week “certainly adds to these concerns” about inflation. The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yields 3.65 percent, up from 2.57 percent on Nov. 3, the day the Fed announced its asset- purchase program.

The increase “in large part reflects the greater optimism among investors about the outlook for economic growth,” Sack said business card. “The rise in yields does not appear to be driven by the concerns expressed by some that the asset purchase program would unleash a considerable rise in U.S. inflation.”

Sack said in response to audience questions that rising Treasury yields reflect that “there’s a lot more confidence in the markets that we’re seeing the beginnings of a more sustained, robust recovery.” Equity prices “should have come down,” if that weren’t true, he said. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has gained more than 10 percent since Nov. 3.

Dual Mandate

Bernanke said today that “inflation is expected to persist below the levels that Fed policy makers have judged to be consistent” with their dual mandate from Congress for stable prices and maximum employment.

Sack said while the central bank has been pressing ahead with quantitative easing, it has also been preparing to withdraw its record monetary stimulus.

“Even as the Federal Reserve has been expanding its balance sheet, it has not lost any momentum in the preparation of its exit tools,” Sack said. “We continue to make considerable progress increasing our capacity to drain reserves if necessary.”

More than 500 depository institutions have registered for the Fed’s term deposit facility, and 58 money-market funds have been added as counterparties for reverse repurchase agreements, Sack said. Last week, the Fed also added two firms as primary dealers, or counterparties to the central bank’s transactions.

“We have already established considerable capacity to drain reserves with these two tools, and we will continue to advance them in productive directions,” Sack said.

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