Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, on September 13 revealed the Fed's decision to engage in a third round of quantitative easing (QE).

In a break from previous rounds of QE, which had a specific size and timescale, the Fed planned to purchase $40 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities every month until the economy strengthened. Including the Fed's maturity extension programme, which will continue until the end of 2012, and the reinvestment of payments from existing holdings