03:20 PM EDT, 05/01/2024 (MT Newswires) -- The Federal Open Market Committee maintained its target range for the federal funds rate at 5.25% to 5.50% but noted a lack of progress on the slowdown in inflation.

The FOMC did slow the pace of runoff of its securities purchases beginning in June, lowering the cap on redemptions of Treasury securities to $25 billion from $60 billion previously and leaving the cap on agency mortgage-backed securities redemptions at $35 billion. The slowdown was smaller than many expected and would be seen as dovish.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell (voter) said that is "unlikely" that the next move by the FOMC would be a hike, saying that the current level of policy restriction should be effective to bring down inflation. However, it is likely to take longer for the FOMC to gain enough confidence that inflation is moving effectively toward the 2% goal to consider rate decreases.