New York, NY – September 23, 2009 – (RealEstateRama) — On Wednesday the Federal Open Market Committee announced that the Federal Reserve will purchase a total of $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities and up to $200 billion of agency debt. The Committee will gradually slow the pace of these purchases in order to promote a smooth transition in markets and anticipates that they will be executed by the end of the first quarter of 2010.
To implement these decisions, agents acting on behalf of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Open Market Trading Desk will gradually reduce the average weekly purchase amounts of agency mortgage-backed securities, starting with purchases conducted during the reporting week beginning Thursday, September 24, 2009. Additionally, the Open Market Trading Desk will gradually reduce both the size and frequency of individual agency debt purchase operations, with the frequency of agency debt purchases remaining, on average, once per week before declining to once every two weeks at some point during the first quarter of 2010. All other terms of the purchase programs remain unchanged.
