6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  program to extend the maturity of our Treasury holdings.10 These additional asset purchases should put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates and make broader financial conditions more accommodative.11 Moreover, our purchases of MBS, by bringing down mortgage rates, provide support directly to housing and thereby help mitigate some of the headwinds facing that sector.
In announcing this decision, we also indicated that we would continue purchasing MBS, undertake additional purchases of longer-term securities, and employ our other policy tools until we judge that the outlook for the labor market has improved substantially in a context of price stability.