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On the other hand, I find it difficult to  * Thanks to Björn Lagerwall who has helped me prepare the speech and to Anna Österberg who has helped in  producing data and figures. Thanks also to Charlotta Edler, Henrik Erikson, Jesper Hansson, Jens Iversen, Marianne Nessén, Amanda Nordström, Tommy Persson, Ulf Stejmar, Marianne Sterner, Anders Vredin and Magnus Åhl for valuable comments. 1 [30]  see the value of later increasing and prolonging the asset purchase programme in a situation where the economy was recovering rapidly and the financial markets were functioning again.   Asset purchases need to be weighed against the risks and problems they can entail. One risk, which has now begun to materialise, is that the purchases entail substantial financial losses. This may, for example, jeopardise the Riksbank's financial independence and thereby impair the conditions for conducting monetary policy in the long run. Another risk is that market participants start to expect the Riksbank to step in as buyer when there is stress on the markets. Why should a central bank purchase assets? During and after the global financial crisis, central banks have needed to manage financial markets that have periodically functioned very poorly. Moreover, their policy rates have at times been limited by a lower bound. It has therefore not been possible to cut the policy rate as much as would have been needed. To manage the problems, many central banks have over the past 15 years launched extensive programmes for asset purchases.