By an 11-to-1 vote, the Federal Reserve on Thursday decided to launch a new program of open-ended bond purchases -- so-called QE3 -- saying it will buy $40 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities each month, starting Friday. It's also keeping in place so-called Operation Twist, which consists of swapping short-dated securities for longer-term securities, as well as reinvesting the proceeds of maturing securities, so the central bank will be adding $85 billion of long-term securities each month through the end of the year. The Fed also extended its pledge to keep interest rates exceptionally low -- Fed funds rates are currently targeted at a rate between 0% and 0.25% -- from late 2014 to "at least through mid-2015."
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