WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- Data from the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) showed on Thursday that the central bank increased its holdings of U.S. Treasury securities.
For the week ending Aug. 28, the average daily figure of Fed holdings of U.S. Treasury securities rose by 5,410 million U.S. dollars to 2,091,269 million dollars.
The majority of U.S. Treasury securities that the Fed holds were longer term securities issued by the U.S. government like Treasury notes and Treasury bonds, which totaled 1,947,943 million dollars, according to the Fed.
The Fed purchased government-issued securities and other securities like Mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from the market in order to boost the money supply and encourage lending and investment after the 2008 financial crisis.
Commonly known as "quantitative easing," the unconventional monetary policy left the central bank with massive holdings of securities and the MBS, providing more liquidity to the U.S. financial market to counter the headwind of crisis.
Meanwhile, the data also showed that the central bank decreased its holdings of the MBS. The average daily figure of MBS holdings dropped 9,007 million dollars to 1,495,931 million dollars, for the week ending Aug. 28.
