By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Laura Matthews

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A sizable block trade in the U.S. rates market late last week appeared to be positioning ahead of the Federal Reserve’s expected announcement to finally end its long-running balance sheet reduction program, known as quantitative tightening (QT).

CME Group data showed a huge block trade last Thursday of 40,000 contracts that expire in November, a wager that the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR) – an overnight repo rate – will average less than nine basis points above the expected federal funds rate, the U.S. central bank’s benchmark rate, in November.

The trade marks a departure from this year’s trend and reflects growing expectations that the Fed will announce the conclusion of QT at the end of its policy meeting o

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