Aug 23, 2012

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/22/federal-reserve-_n_1823353.html

WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve officials signaled Wednesday that they may be ready to launch a new bond buying program when they next meet in September.

The goal would be to try to lower long-term interest rates to encourage more borrowing and spending.

Minutes of the July 31-Aug. 1 policy meeting released Wednesday don't explicitly say what action the Fed would most likely take. But they hint that the central bank is preparing to begin more bond buying....

The Fed has already sought to drive down long-term rates by buying more than $2 trillion in Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities in two previous rounds of bond purchases. The purchases are called "quantitative easing."