The U.S. Federal Reserve on Sept. 18 announced that it will not pull back from its quantitative monetary easing, which features injecting a large amount of funds into the economy mainly through the purchase of U.S. government bonds.
The decision by the Federal Open Market Committee to continue its bond-buying program at the same pace surprised financial market players because they had thought that the United States was basically on a path of gradual economic recovery despite conflicting economic indicators and had expected the Fed to scale down its monetary easing in September.
At a news conference after the FOMC meeting, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said, "Conditions in the job market today still are far from what all of us would like to see."