The US Federal Reserve System has left the benchmark interest at 0.0-0.25% annually and the quantity purchased bonds of the US Treasury at $400 billion, confirming the rate at the same level until at least 2013.
The FRS also gave a higher ranking to prospects for the US economy, noting that there will be growth, with the world GDP growth slowing down.
US stock markets concluded their Tuesday trade with the DJIA index dropping by 0.55% to 11954.94, S&P 500 dropping by 0.87% to 1225.73 and the Nasdaq dropping by 1.26% to 2579.27.
Twist operations will stay in force, but there was no mention of the third yearly quarter or further coordinated measures with the European Central Bank, Mark Bronzo from the Security Global Investors told Bloomberg.
Investors were happy with the successful distribution of Spanish bonds. Spain set 12-month bonds under 4.05% and 18-month bonds under 4.226%. The bonds are worth a total of 4.94 billion euros, compared with a forecast 3.25-4.25 billion euros. Retail prices in November increased by 0.2% compared with October, reaching $399.3 billion. Analysts predicted 0.6%.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke out against increasing the stability mechanism. It was decided at the EU summit last week that the new system would have a fund of 500 billion euros. Many believe that this sum would not be enough to support Spain and Italy.
The euro's currency rate dropped to $1.30 on Tuesday, a record low level in the last 11 months. It dropped to $1.3037 by the end of trade, compared with 1.3188 a day earlier. A dollar is worth 78 yen, compared with 77.93 yen in previous trading.
The index of economic expectations for the eurozone in December increased by 5 points to minus 54.1, compared with November. The index of the German economy increased by 1.4 points to minus 53.8, showing such high rates for the first time in the last 9 months. Analysts expected the index to drop to minus 55.8 from 55.2 in November.
Jens Nordvig, an expert from Nomura Securities, said that the results of the FRS session were not as expected, supporting the dollar.
February futures for gold on the New York Stock Market Comex dropped by 0.42% to $1663 per troy ounce.
Darin Newsom, a senior analyst at Telvent DTN, said that there were no expectations of US monetary policy.
