Active Day for the Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve injected a total of $38 billion into the banking system Friday, saying it was providing liquidity as needed to keep financial markets operating normally.

"The Federal Reserve is providing liquidity to facilitate the orderly functioning of financial markets," the Fed said in a statement.

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OPEN MARKET OPERATIONS:

The buying and selling of U.S. Treasury securities by the Federal Reserve System (the Fed) as a means of a controlling the money supply. An increase in the money supply is achieved when the Fed buys securities. A decrease in the money supply is achieved when the Fed sells securities. The Federal Open Market Committee is the specific component of the Federal Reserve System that is charged with open market operations. Open market operations are the most important of the three monetary policy tools that the Fed can use, in principle, to control the money supply. The other two are the discount rate and reserve requirements.

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LIQUIDITY:

The ease with which an asset can be converted to money with little or no loss of value. Money, currency and checkable deposits, is the benchmark for liquidity. Money is what other assets are converted to. Different assets have differing degrees of liquidity. Financial assets have differing degrees of liquidity but tend to be more liquid that physical assets. Liquidity is important to components of the three monetary aggregates tracked and reported by the Federal Reserve System--M1, M2, and M3.

read more about liquidity here