NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The Federal Reserve delivered a snoozer for investors. The Fed's policy-making arm on Wednesday announced no change to the federal funds rate and cut its monthly bond-buying program to $25 billion from $35 billion -- a move that the market anticipated. Without a shocker in the statement, the Fed signaled to investors that now is a safe time to pack the bags and head to the beach for some summer sun as the central bank remained tight-lipped about what everyone cares most about: interest rates. "I don't think you get a clear sign about raising interest rates during this year," Moody's Analytics economist Ben Garber, said in a phone interview before the statement emerged. "Conceivably I don’t see any type of move on interest rates until the second quarter of next year." Yellen and key Fed officials have repeatedly hinted that the bank will end its economic stimulus program -- purchasing each month $15 billion of longer-term Treasuries and $10 billion of mortgage-backed securities -- which has allowed market participants to price in its likely conclusion for October. The market and economic focus on the Fed, then, is when officials expect to raise the federal funds rate from its historic low level of zero to 0.25%. Critics argue that core inflation is ticking to 2% -- the Fed targets this as the level of inflation it wants to maintain -- which, if surpassed, will force the central bank to counter by raising interest rates.The Federal Open Market Committee said in its statement that the likelihood of continued sub-2% inflation has "diminished somewhat." However, Yellen and others contend that while the economy is posting strong jobs growth, wage growth remains subpar. This suggests that even if inflation does creep past 2%, there isn't enough momentum to keep pushing it higher too quickly. Steady economic growth, declining unemployment and no hints of an interest rate hike may allow investors to turn on autopilot for now. -- Written by Joe Deaux in New York. >Contact by Email. Follow @JoeDeaux // 0;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); // ]]>
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