The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Monday that it had begun purchasing mortgage-backed securities in an effort to bolster the battered housing market.

Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve didn’t add temporary 28-day reserves in exchange for mortgage-backed securities for the first time since it began a weekly lending program in March.

The Federal Reserve said Monday it began buying troubled mortgage securities through investment managers, kicking off a program expected to spend up to 500 billion dollars to ease a credit crisis.