Three months ago, at the start of May when the Treasury was busy spending hundreds of billions of cash parked in the Fed's Treasury General Account in a form of stealth QE, the US government surprised markets when it announced that it expected to release just $100BN in cash in May and June, bringing its total cash balance to $800BN by the end of June, and then just another $50BN lower three months later, or $750BN at the end of Sept. Additionally, the Treasury assumed a cash balance of approximately $450 billion at the expiration of the debt limit suspension on July 31 based on expected outflows under its cash management policies. And while the Treasury caveat that "the actual cash balance on July 31 may vary from this assumption based on changes to expected outflows in that period" its estimate was surprisingly spot on, with the latest Daily Treasury Statement showing $459 billion as of the end of July, not far from its forecast.