(Reuters) – The scale of the Federal Reserve’s recent asset purchases has been “unparalleled” and the central bank’s emergency lending facilities succeeded in calming trading conditions, although some aspects of markets may not return to pre-crisis levels for a while, a senior Fed official said on Tuesday.
The Fed purchased about $1.6 trillion in Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities in the last four weeks, a commitment that helped restore order to markets, said Lorie Logan, manager of the System Open Market Account in remarks to the New York Fed’s foreign exchange committee.
“Extending a strong commitment to support market functioning has calmed trading conditions and allayed the potentially self-fulfilling fear that conditions might deteriorate further,” Logan said.
(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
