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| Federal Reserve acts to cut long-term borrowing costs | |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| The Federal Reserve has decided to extend its programme of swapping short-term bonds for long-term ones. | The Federal Reserve has decided to extend its programme of swapping short-term bonds for long-term ones. |
| The programme, known as Operation Twist, will be extended until the end of the year. The programme is worth $267bn (£170bn). | |
| The idea of the programme is to cut the long-term cost of borrowing for businesses and households. | The idea of the programme is to cut the long-term cost of borrowing for businesses and households. |
| The Federal Reserve Monetary Policy Committee's decision was not unanimous, with one member voting against it. | |
| The only one of the 12 members to vote against it was Jeffery Lacker, president of the Richmond Regional Fed Bank, who has also voted against the previous three decisions. | |
| Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is to give a press conference later in the day. | |
| Operation Twist involves the Federal Reserve buying bonds that have between six and 30 years left on them and selling equal amount of bonds with less than three years left. | |
| "The Fed was more concerned about the economy than they have been and eased by extending Operation Twist," said Allen Sinai, chief executive of Decision Economics in New York. | |
| "They appear to be holding more firepower in reserve in case things get worse." | |
| The central bank's statement pointed out that "growth in employment has slowed in recent months, and the unemployment rate remains elevated". | |
| It kept interest rates unchanged at the level of zero to 0.25%. |