The quarterly banking profile of FDIC-insured institutions provides an overview of their aggregate financial condition, including data on bank earnings, loan and deposit activity, and asset quality. According to theses profiles, mortgage-backed securities make up more than half of the total assets held on their balance sheets.

Our FRED graph above shows the makeup of these institutions’ balance sheets between the first quarter of 1984 and the first quarter of 2026. The asset classes are as follows, in descending order of relative shares:

1. Mortgage-backed securities (blue area): bonds backed by pools of home mortgages (60.7%)
2. U.S. Treasury securities (orange area): debt issued by the US federal government (33.5%)
3. State and municipal securities (green area): bonds issued by states and local governments to fund public projects (5.8%)
4. Equity securities (purple area): shares of ownership in a corporation (0.0%)

We can see that mortgage-backed securities consistently represent the lion’s share of assets. However, between 2008 and the time of this writing, the share of those securities has decreased while the share of US Treasury and state and municipal securities has increased. Researchers at the Kansas City Fed point to changes in the regulatory environment and evolving preferences for risk to explain this changing mix.

These assets can also be classified as either trading securities or investment securities. Trading securities are intended to generate short-term financial gains and typically make up a small share of a bank’s total assets. Investment securities, on the other hand, make up the larger share of a bank’s total assets and typically have longer holding periods. Their type is reported on the balance sheet as either “held to maturity” (HTM) or “available for sale” (AFS).

Our second FRED graph below shows the proportions of HTM (blue area) and AFS securities (green area) held in FDIC-insured banks between the first quarter of 1994 and the first quarter of 2025.

Since 1996, most of the investment securities are available for sale, meaning they are held for an indefinite period of time and could be sold before maturity. However, since 2010, the proportion of investment securities that banks intend to hold until expiration, or maturity, has increased. At the time of this writing, they amount to 39.8% of all investment assets.

The Kansas City Fed researchers mentioned above ascribe this changing pattern to a strategy to better protect the value of mandatory capital levels against financial risk.

How these graphs were created: First graph: Browse FRED data by source and navigate to “Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.” Select the release “FDIC Quarterly Banking Profile” and the release table “Assets and Liabilities of FDIC-Insured Commercial Banks and Savings Institutions.” Scroll to the section labeled “Securities” and check the boxes next to the series labeled “U.S. Treasury Securities,” “Mortgage-Backed Securities,” “State and Municipal Securities,” and “Equity Securities.” Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Add to Graph.” Click the “Edit Graph” button and select the “Format” tab to choose “Graph Type: Area” and “Stacking: Percent.”
Second graph: Navigate to “Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation” source again to select the same release and release table. Again, scroll to the section labeled “Securities” and check the boxes next to the series labeled “Available for Sale (Fair Value)” and “Held to Maturity (Amortized Cost).” Click “Add to Graph.” Click “Edit Graph” and select “Format” to choose “Graph Type: Area” and “Stacking: Percent.”

Suggested by Joe Kledis, Collin Eldridge, Melanie LeTourneau and Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

The FRED Blog has discussed why employment in retail and postal services peak around the Christmas holidays. Today we tap into a 2018 research piece from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago to discuss why construction employment may follow different patterns across states.

Our FRED graph above shows monthly employment data reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The solid lines are the numbers (in thousands) of employed workers in construction between May 2016 and June 2026 in two states: Kentucky in purple and Minnesota in blue. The dashed lines are the same employment figures adjusted for the seasonal impact of factors, such as weather, that affect overall economic activity in that industry. We picked those two states to make our point because they have markedly different weather during the winter and summer months.

Note there are far more construction employees in Minnesota than in Kentucky because the Northern state is more populous than the Southern / Midwestern state. Given this size difference, comparing annual employment peaks and throughs between states isn’t easy or straightforward.

To better tell the story behind the numbers, we created a second FRED graph that plots the size of the seasonal changes in employment as a fraction of the seasonally adjusted employment figures between May 2016 and June 2026. This graph shows similar overall patterns for both states: increases through August and declines until February, but a much wider seasonal range in Minnesota than in Kentucky. (That is, much higher highs and much lower lows for Minnesota.) This difference could be related to the ability to work through more of the winter months in the South relative to the North.

If you want to dive further into these patterns, check out the state-level employment data by industry in FRED.

How these graphs were created: Search FRED for “All Employees: Construction in Minnesota” and find the seasonally adjusted series (MNCONS). Click “Edit Graph” and navigate to the “Add Line” tab. Search for “All Employees: Construction in Minnesota” and find the non-seasonally adjusted series (MNCONSN) and click “Add Data Series.” Repeat with the seasonally adjusted (KYCONS) and not seasonally adjusted (KYCONSN) series for “All Employees: Construction in Kentucky” to complete the graph.

Suggested by Alison Booth and Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

FRED has not only current data series but also historic data series, some of which are very old. As we’ve mentioned on this blog, the oldest series in FRED is population data for the United Kingdom, dating back to 1086! The next 41 oldest series are also from the United Kingdom. Now that the United States is celebrating a quarter millennium of existence, let’s look at the oldest US series in FRED.

Our FRED graph above shows data on federal public expenditures, specifically for public works, that go as far back as 1791. More categories for public expenditures are available, with a couple also dating back to 1791.

The graph is dominated by the huge increase in military expenditures that came with WWI. Note that the data are calculated in current prices—that is, prices at the time, which have not been adjusted for inflation. And there’s no price series that is old enough to help reconcile this issue. Indeed, the data were computed retrospectively in 1920, which means that the data collection practices used were obviously not up to modern standards. In fact, it seems some liberties were taken with the definitions of the data. For example, the little bump in 1904 corresponds to the purchase of the Panama Canal and land around it: $40 million to France and $10 million to Panama.

How this graph was created: From the FRED home page, go to the “Browse Data By” list on the right side and choose “Category.” From the Categories page, go to the “Browse Data” list on the left side and choose “All Series.” From the All Series page, change “Sort by Popularity” on the right side of the listing to “Sort by Obs Start.” From this oldest series list, choose the first US series.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.