The Federal Reserve is continuing to taper its massive stimulus program as expected, announcing Wednesday that it will dial back monthly bond purchases to $35 billion from $45 billion starting in July. “The committee currently judges that there is sufficient underlying strength in the broader market to support ongoing improvement in labor market conditions,” officials wrote in the FOMC statement.
Central bankers slashed their forecast for U.S. economic growth in 2014 and said that the unemployment rate, “though lower, remains elevated.” But they also noted that economic growth has “rebounded in recent months” and nudged up their projections for short-term interest rates in a vote of confidence. The stock market traded up ever so slightly on the news but really didn’t react very much—probably because nothing the Fed said on Wednesday was too befuddling or surprising.
