Fed minutes point to December taper, but that was pre-shutdown

The minutes from the contentious FOMC meeting last month reveal that despite the decision to delay the tapering of its asset purchases, which was described as a "relatively close call", "most" Fed officials still expected to begin the tapering before year-end and to halt it completely by mid-2014. Of course, that was before the current government shutdown began. There is now a risk that the Fed won't begin to slow its asset purchases until early next year.