Fed cuts target for key rate to record low

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve has cut its target for a key interest rate to the lowest level on record and pledged to use “all available tools” to combat a severe financial crisis and prolonged recession. The central bank on Tuesday said it had reduced the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other, to a range of zero to 0.25 percent. That is down from the 1 percent target rate in effect since the last meeting in October. Many analysts had expected the Fed to make a smaller cut to 0.5 percent. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues also pledged to use “all available tools” as they struggle to contain a financial crisis that is the worst since the 1930s and a recession that is already the longest in a quarter-century. The Fed also made clear that it intends to keep the funds rate at extremely low levels. “The committee anticipates that weak economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for some time,” the central bank’s panel that sets interest rates said in a statement. The Fed’s decision is expected to be quickly matched by a reduction in banks’ prime lending rate, the benchmark rate for millions of business and consumer loans. Before the Fed announcement, the prime rate stood at 4 percent.