Fed to Keep Trimming Stimulus as Economy Shakes Off Stall

The Federal Reserve said it will keep reducing the pace of bond purchases as the economy shakes off the winter doldrums, putting the central bank on a course to end the unprecedented stimulus program by the close of 2014.

Growth “has picked up recently,” the Federal Open Market Committee said yesterday in a statement in Washington, hours after a government report showed gross domestic product barely expanded in the first quarter. “Household spending appears to be rising more quickly.”