Fed could slow QE if jobs market improves: minutes

WASHINGTON: The Federal Reserve could slow the pace of its bond-purchase program this year if the jobs market continues to improve, according to the minutes of the last FOMC meeting released on Wednesday.

The minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee's meeting last month showed policymakers slightly more inclined to reel in massive bond purchases this year amid signs of recovery in the labor market.

"Many participants expressed the view that continued solid improvement in the outlook for the labor market could prompt the Committee to slow the pace of purchases beginning at some point over the next several meetings," the minutes said.

The March 19-20 meeting came on the heels of the February jobs surge, which added 268,000 nonfarm payrolls.

But the March data released last week showed a paltry gain of 88,000 jobs, the slowest growth in nine months and far below expectations.

FOMC policymakers debated about the risks of the Fed's aggressive $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program, a third round of quantitative easing known as QE3.

"A few participants noted that they already viewed the costs as likely outweighing the benefits and so would like to bring the program to a close relatively relatively soon."

"A few others" saw the risks accelerating with the size of the Fed's balance sheet and projected the pace of purchases would likely need to be slowed "before long."

Since the FOMC meeting, there has been a series of disappointing data, including falling consumer confidence and weaker-than-expected activity in the manufacturing and service sectors.

The weaker data have stoked questions about the strength of the recovery after mere 0.4 percent economic growth in the fourth quarter and supported analysts' expectations that the Fed will keep its foot on the QE pedal.

The FOMC minutes, which were scheduled for release at 1800 GMT, were released five hours early. The Fed explained it had moved up the release after discovering the minutes had been inadvertently sent too soon to a certain number of people on its distribution list.