April 26, 2012 -- The Federal Open Market Committee said Wednesday that the central bank will maintain its existing policies of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities. The Committee said the economy has shown moderate signs of improvement but the housing sector remains depressed and the unemployment rate remains elevated. Because of these and other factors, the Committee decided to keep the target range for the federal funds rate near zero and currently anticipates that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through late 2014. Read more.