US stocks edged lower after the release of the Federal Reserve’s policy statement and looked ahead to comments from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.
The central bank dropped the US unemployment rate as its definitive yardstick for gauging the economy’s strength, and made clear it would rely on a wide range of measures in deciding when to raise interest rates.
The Fed also said it would cut its monthly purchases of US Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities to $55 billion, from $65 billion.
Fed Chair Janet Yellen was holding a news conference, her first as chair.
The S&P 500 was within 1 percent of its intraday record high, though economic bellwether FedEx Corp hit a sour note in its outlook. Geopolitical concerns related to Ukraine also stayed in focus.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 31.56 points or 0.19 percent, to 16,304.63, the S&P 500 lost 2.53 points or 0.14 percent, to 1,869.72 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 7.471 points or 0.17 percent, to 4,325.842.
The S&P 500 has climbed 1.7 percent over the past two days, the best back-to-back performance for the benchmark index since early February.
Meanwhile, European shares held steady, although Italian stocks slipped in strong volumes as Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the European Union’s budget deficit limit of 3 percent of economic output was outdated.
Shares in UK insurers also dropped, hurt by government plans to scrap a requirement that pension savings be used to buy an annuity. Legal & General was down 8.4 percent and Aviva down 5.1 percent after UK finance minister George Osborne announced the plans as part of the UK budget.
The FTSEurofirst 300 ended 0.07 percent lower, at 1,305.14 points, while the euro zone’s blue-chip Euro STOXX 50 index added 0.08 percent at 3,076.36 points.
Despite the day’s dip, the MIB is still up 11 percent in 2014, strongly outpacing the broad FTSEurofirst 300 which is down 0.9 percent year-to-date, as investors bet on recovery from Italy’s worst recession in 70 years.
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