A slowing of US Federal Reserve asset purchases is still in the balance with many officials wanting more gains in the jobs market first, according to minutes of its most recent meeting.
The minutes released yesterday show that Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, was not signalling a definite “tapering” of quantitative easing from $85bn a month at his June press conference, but rather was trying to be clearer about the conditions that would trigger it.
That is likely to reassure global financial markets, which plunged after Mr Bernanke sent out a detailed scenario, with asset purchases slowing down later this year and ending in the middle of 2014 with unemployment at 7 per cent.