Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Helicopter Ben to the Rescue

Mo money!

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve will hold auctions to lend as much as $200 billion in Treasury securities and increase swap lines with two foreign central banks to try to ease renewed turmoil in credit markets.

The Fed said in a statement it is establishing a new Term Securities Lending Facility to, through weekly auctions, lend as much as $200 billion of Treasuries to primary dealers for 28 days, instead of overnight as it currently does. The loans may be secured by collateral including agency and private mortgage- backed securities, the Fed said.