Fed Pulls Trigger, to Buy Mortgages in Effort to Lower Rates

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finance.yahoo.com

The Federal Reserve fulfilled expectations of more stimulus for the faltering economy, taking aim now at driving down mortgage rates.
The Fed said it will buy $40 billion of mortgages per month in an attempt to foster a nascent recovery in the real estate market. The purchases will be open-ended, meaning that they will continue until the Fed is satisfied that economic conditions, primarily in unemployment, improve.

Enacting the third leg of quantitative easing will take the Fed's money creation past the $3 trillion level since it began the process in 2008.
"The Committee is concerned that, without further policy accommodation, economic growth might not be strong enough to generate sustained improvement in labor market conditions," the Open Market Committee said in a statement. (More: Read the Fed's Full Statement Here.)

In addition, the Fed said it will continue its program of selling shorter-dated government debt and buying longer-term securities, a mechanism known as Operation Twist. It also will continue its policy of reinvesting principal payments from agency debt and mortgage-backed securities back into mortgages.
The Fed left its funds rate unchanged at near-zero but offered one change in that regard, saying the rate would stay at "exceptionally low levels" until at least mid-2015.