Fed holds fire on further easing

The Federal Reserve has held policy steady following the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on October 23–24.

The federal funds rate will remain at 0–0.25%, monthly purchases of $40 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities will continue and the Fed's maturity extension programme will remain until the end of the year. In line with its previous meeting, the Fed's forward guidance was for rates to remain low until mid-2015.

The FOMC noted that economic activity expanded at a "m