WASHINGTON: Federal Reserve policy makers expected at their October meeting that they would begin cutting the stimulus program "in coming months", the minutes of that meeting showed Wednesday.
The Federal Open Market Committee left the $85 billion a month asset-purchase program unchanged at the October 29-30 meeting, but thought that the labor market would continue to improve enough to soon begin the long-awaited taper of the program.
"They generally expected that the data would prove consistent with the committee's outlook for ongoing improvement in labor market conditions and would thus warrant trimming the pace of purchases in coming months," the minutes said.
At the same time, the group discussed the need to better communicate its expectations for interest rate changes, noting that markets had overly linked together two separate policy decisions -- when the asset purchases would be cut and when the Fed would begin raising its base interest rate.
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