The Federal Reserve will be reinvesting principal payments from agency MBS and agency debt into longer-term Treasury securities.
The Fed also said it will continue to roll over its holdings of Treasury securities as they mature and maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0% to 0.25%.
Only one member of the Federal Open Market Committee, Thomas J. Hoenig, voted against the move, saying he believes the economy is recovering as expected. Therefore he does not believe that keeping constant the size of the Fed's holdings of longer-term securities at their current level is required to meet policy objectives.
Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, also said he believes continuing to express the expectation of exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period is no longer warranted.
