DALLAS (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will take whatever steps it deems necessary to keep financial markets open and end the country's year-long recession, one of its top policy-makers said on Thursday.
"We will not shy from pursuing every practicable means of supporting the functioning of financial markets and stimulating the economy back to a steady state by employing new techniques that fit the current circumstance," Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said in prepared remarks.
"We stand ready to grow our balance sheet even more should conditions warrant. For example, we will expand purchases of mortgage-backed securities, should we feel such purchases would be productive," he said in a speech to the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth over lunch.
Fisher is a voting member of the Fed's interest-rate setting committee this year and therefore supported the Fed's dramatic decision on Tuesday to slice its interest rate target to a range of between zero and 0.25 percent, from 1 percent.
(Reporting by Alister Bull, Editing by Neil Stempleman)
