The New York Fed purchased nearly $25.7bn in agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from August 27 through September 2, at the same time the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is weighing its options to complete the purchase of $300bn of Treasury securities. According to the FOMC August meeting minutes, released earlier this week, the committee decided to gradually slow the pace of the remainder of its purchases of and extend the completion to the end of October in order to help promote a smooth transition in markets. But the committee held off deciding on other programs to purchase agency debt and MBS that don’t expire until next year, and said it will evaluate options when those programs get closer to their expiration dates. Write to Austin Kilgore.