By Teresa Rivas
Stocks were pushing higher following the release of the Federal Reserve’s policy statement, at the conclusion of its two-day meeting.
The Federal Reserve said it expects economic growth will pick up from its recent pace, but noted that it sees inflation running below 2% as a risk and said it was concerned about a rise in mortgage rates. It did not give any hints about eventual tapering of its monthly bond purchases.
Read the full statement here.
Stocks were climbing before the announcement, with the Dow up 0.1%, the S&P up 0.2% and the Nasdaq up 0.4% in the minutes before the 2 p.m. release. Although trading is normally quite light ahead of the Fed’s statements, positive jobs data and gross domestic product growth spurred more volume than usual.
Update: Stocks have since given up some of their gains following the Fed’s statement; at 2:20, the Nasdaq was up 0.4%, the S&P up 0.2% and the Dow had slipped into the red by a fraction of a point.
Second update: At 2:30, the Dow is up 0.2%, the S&P up 0.4% and the Nasdaq up 0.6%.