SEATTLE – Washington Federal, Inc. (Nasdaq: WAFD), parent company of Washington Federal, today announced that it has taken steps intended to reduce the Company’s interest rate risk and improve its future earnings potential. In the preceding ten days, the Company sold $2.4 billion of fixed rate mortgage-backed securities for a pre-tax gain of $95 million.  The securities sold yielded an annualized 3.22% in the month of July, 2012. In the same period, the Company pre-paid $876 million of long term debt at a pre-tax loss of $95 million.  The weighted average rate on the retired debt was 3.94%.