Wall Street mixed following Open Market Committee meeting

Wall Street closed yesterday's (October 24th) trading with mixed results following the conclusion of a two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting in Washington DC.

The Federal Reserve (Fed) stated that the economy is continuing to expand at a modest pace while unemployment remains elevated – and the central bank maintains its $40 billion (£25 billion) in monthly mortgage-backed securities purchases aimed at driving growth.

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is leading a third round of bond-buying as he is looking to increase job creation for the 12.1 million US citizens currently out of work.

This week's Open Market Committee meeting was the last before the presidential election and the group reiterated it would continue to implement its open-ended asset purchases until the labour market showed significant signs of improvement.

In addition to persevering with its bond-buying, the Fed repeated it will keep interest rates at near zero at least until 2015.

At close of play last night, the Nasdaq index was lower by 0.2 per cent to 2981.7 points and the Dow Jones rose by 0.1 per cent to 13077.3 points.

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