Federal Reserve's policy-making panel kept steady stance on interest rastes
WASHINGTON -- Federal Reserve policy makers unanimously decided at their Nov. 16 meeting to hold interest rates steady and to lean neither toward higher nor lower rates in the ensuing weeks, the Fed disclosed.</br></br>The Fed's policy-making open market committee met Tuesday behind closed doors, and hasn't signaled any immediate change in interest rates since then.</br></br>The summary of the November meeting, released last week after the customary lag, said Fed officials agreed "that despite various indications of a pickup in economic growth, the underlying economic situation and the outlook for inflation hadn't changed sufficiently to warrant an adjustment in monetary policy."</br></br>The Fed has been holding short-term interest rates at historically low levels since September 1992. The recent strength of the economy has sparked speculation about when the Fed will begin to move rates up.</br></br>At their November meeting, according to the 22-page summary, Fed officials reiterated their intention of "taking early action to arrest incipient inflationary pressures before they gathered strength." They said that "in appropriate circumstances, a prompt policy move" -- that is, an increase in short-term interest rates -- might allay financial market concerns about inflation and keep the bond market from pushing up long-term rates.