Extending the horizon of the forward guidance appeared to shift down investors’ expectations regarding the future path of the target federal funds rate. If this expectation for low rates is realized, the federal funds rate will have remained near zero for a total of about six years, a historically unprecedented occurrence in the United States.
Moreover, assuming that the FOMC follows the plans that we outlined in June 2011 for winding down the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, any initial  BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  sales of our securities holdings presumably would not begin until 2015, sometime after the first increase in the target federal funds rate.