The Federal Reserve Bank left the federal fund rate unchanged at 0.75%. This Fed statement had nothing new to add except for acknowledging some improvement in the economy. Here's the official release:https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/mo...Here's an excerpt from Bloomberg.com:“Measures of consumer and business sentiment have improved of late,” the Federal Open Market Committee said in its statement Wednesday following a two-day meeting in Washington. Policy makers reiterated their expectations for moderate economic growth, “some further strengthening” in the labor market and a return to 2 percent inflation.The Fed provided little direction on when it might next raise borrowing costs, as officials grapple with the uncertainty created by a new presidential administration. Policy makers in December penciled three rate hikes into their 2017 forecasts, but committee members differ over assumptions regarding the extent to which tax cuts, spending and regulatory rollbacks proposed by Trump and Republicans might boost growth and inflation.“There is nothing in the statement that leads me to believe that their forecast has changed much,” said Roberto Perli, partner at Cornerstone Macro LLC in Washington. “I don’t think there is any reason to question whether they are thinking about doing less or more than they were thinking in December.”The FOMC repeated that it anticipates interest rates will rise gradually. The statement said job gains “remained solid” and the unemployment rate “stayed near its recent low,” a tweak from December’s language that the rate “has declined.”“Inflation increased in recent quarters but is still below the committee’s 2 percent longer-run objective,” the Fed said. Market-based measures of inflation compensation are “still low,” the central bank said, after saying in December that such measures had “moved up considerably.” (Full Article at Bloomberg.com)