Fed Taper Getting Closer, Minutes Say

Federal Reserve officials might reduce their $85 billion in monthly bond purchases “in coming months” as the economy improves, minutes of their last meeting show.

Policy makers “generally expected that the data would prove consistent with the committee’s outlook for ongoing improvement in labor market conditions and would thus warrant trimming the pace of purchases in coming months,” according to the record of the Federal Open Market Committee’s Oct. 29-30 gathering, released Wednesday in Washington.

The FOMC is considering how and when to taper asset purchases without triggering a rise in interest rates that could slow economic growth and erode gains in the labor market. Their meeting minutes show extensive discussion on how to increase the clarity of their plans to hold interest rates near zero. They made no decisions on those plans.