The Federal Reserve will hold interest rates steady, it announced Wednesday, and the central bank also said it would next month begin selling off securities it bought at the height of the financial crisis.

The Federal Open Markets Committee, which is in charge of the Fed’s monetary policy, said it would hold off on increasing rates beyond the 1 to 1.25 percent target range as inflation lingers below the 2 percent target range. The Fed last raised rates in June, the second rate rise in 2017.

The Fed also outlined its plans to sell off $4.5 trillion in securities it purchased during the 2007-2008 financial panic to stabilize markets. Next month, the bank will begin selling $6 billion per month of Treasury bonds it holds and $4 billion per month in agency debt and mortgage-backed securities. The bank will increase those caps by $6 billion every three months, until the bank is selling off $30 billion in Treasury bonds and $20 billion in debt each month.

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The central bank had been waiting for the economy to stabilize to sell off these assets.

Fed observers widely expected the bank to hold off on another hike with inflation still lagging behind the Fed’s 2 percent ideal level, which the bank argues strikes the right balance of steady price and wage growth with stable employment.

Several Fed governors have expressed concerns about the relatively low inflation. The Fed’s main gauge of inflation, the personal consumption expenditures price index, rose only 1.4 percent in May from the previous year. A 2.1 percent annual increase in February was the only month since 2012 that the index’s annual increase exceeded the Fed’s target.



Federal Reserve Board Chairwoman Janet Yellen has attributed low inflation to sharp, one-time price drops in prescription drugs and cellphone plans, saying inflation is likely to inch toward the target range soon.

But Yellen’s colleagues said in a July meeting they were worried about advancing with hiking interest rates — which could lower inflation — until prices rose slightly on their own. This came after months of public warnings from the Fed’s more liberal members to hold off on rate hikes.