Fed Leaves Rates Unchanged

Faced with conflicting economic data, Federal Reserve policy-makers decided today to leave interest rates unchanged.

After meeting privately for more than four hours, the Federal Open Market Committee adjourned without making any change.

Fed spokesman Joseph R. Coyne said that the meeting had adjourned and that there would be no announcement - a signal that Fed policymakers had left rates unchanged.

“The Fed’s instinct is to wait and see,” said economist David Jones of Aubrey G. Lanston & Co., a New York government securities firm. “There is no sense of urgency to make any policy shift.”

Like most other analysts, Jones had predicted the FOMC would not act until more definitive evidence of the economy’s direction is available.