Federal Reserve to Buy Corporate Bonds for the First Time

The Fed is coming to the rescue again.

In fact, it just announced it will now buy individual corporate bonds, on tops of the exchange-traded funds it’s been buying.  The program has the ability to buy up to $750 billion worth of corporate credit.

“The decision to buy a broad portfolio of corporate bonds represents a shift to a more active strategy for the secondary market corporate credit facility, rather than the passive approach originally envisioned,” said Steven Friedman, senior macroeconomist at MacKay Shields, as quoted by CNBC.

Individual bond buying will be limited to bonds with remaining maturities of five years or less and issuers with credit ratings of BBB- or Baa3 as of March 22.