> First, I think you're missing a "not" in your second sentence?

Yes, thank you for pointing out.

> The certifications are an interesting additional detail that I wasn't aware of. So if I understand correctly, the program wrote one set of rules for purchases of individual bonds, and then a different set of rules for purchases of ETFs. It allocated more money for individual bonds, but the Fed discovered that those rules meant that no issuers wanted to participate. So the Fed instead purchased ETFs.

The rules were not spelled out at the time of the announcement; including the part on personal certification by the issuer. If you look to the ECB corporate program for example, they do not require issuer certification and that was seen as a model for the operations of this.

Without getting too deep into things, Congress wanted to make sure that US companies benefited from this and that's part of the certification process. Additionally, certification requires attesting that the issuer has not received money under the CARES act and while it's not been publicly stated, it's suspected that's one of the reasons why personal issuer certification is required.

While all of this was evolving, PPP launched and there was a lot of backlash on large corporations receiving money. Between the logistics of having individual issuers certify and issuers being reluctant to certify, the bond purchase portion of the program has been stalled.

So yes, the Fed made its first corporate facility purchases through ETFs as a result of all of this but also took two months to do so. If the main goal of the facility was to buy ETFs and they really wanted to get it done, they could get that up and running within a week max if not sooner.

> I think I'd still say that makes the ETFs more convenient? Certainly that's true under those rules; and to the extent those different rules exist for good reason (e.g., because with a diversified and liquid index, it's easier to avoid both the appearance of political favor and the actual thing), that seems fundamentally true too. So I don't see what that changes in my initial statement, though it's interesting that it happened "by accident" instead of by design.

I take issue with saying that they're making ETF purchases because they're more liquid and convenient for a few reasons. One of the main reasons is that only reason why they're buying them right now is because it's the only thing they're actually able to buy. Liquidity and convenience really mean nothing when you only have a single option.

As far as avoiding anything with politics, there was no consideration given for that when the facilities were announced and I doubt there is any now. They changed purchase eligibility retroactively to include fallen angels and the cutoff date magically included Ford while excluded several sizable issuers by a day or two. It's also very tough to hand out favors through bond purchases in a way that would materially affect funding costs for a specific issuer AND have it slip under the radar. While that doesn't escape the appearance of political favors, I would argue that by selecting Blackrock as the investment manager they really don't care about the appearance of politics. In fact, by selecting Blackrock, it shows that their primary goal was bonds rather than ETFs as you can easily find an investment manager to manage a few billion in ETFs; it's much harder to find one that can manage few hundred billion in bonds.