Fed resumes policy meeting

The Federal Reserve's top policy makers resumed discussions on the direction of monetary policy and the US economy Wednesday, the final session of a two-day meeting. The interest rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee was meeting amid tepid growth in the world's largest economy, but few expected the FOMC to announce a new economic stimulus. The FOMC is expected to issue a post-meeting statement around 2:15 pm (1815 GMT). "With the economy's weaker momentum since the June FOMC meeting, we expect Fed policymakers later Wednesday to tweak their statement, changing its rate guidance to signal no change in the key policy rate through mid-2015," Moody's Analytics analysts said. "The central bank has pledged to keep rates low until late 2014. We still think more quantitative easing is coming, but the odds of it beginning next week are under 50 percent." The Fed has kept interest rates at historic lows, between zero and 0.25 percent, since December 2008 in a bid to spur recovery from the Great Recession. With few tools left in the box and the outlook murky, the Fed has been reluctant to embark on a third round of asset purchases, or quantitative easing, dubbed QE3. Instead Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues have preferred to wait and see whether a recent slowdown has been a blip, or a harbinger of worse times ahead. Last week the Commerce Department reported growth in the second quarter was just 1.5 percent, down from 2.0 percent in the first quarter but better than expected.