For Yellen, There's a Single Mandate Now

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve let the other shoe drop.

In a statement issued after its two-day meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee declared that it would continue to wind down its extraordinary bond buying program (“quantitative easing” or QEIII) by another $10 billion, so it will now buy $55 billion worth of bonds a month. That was well-telegraphed.

But then it dropped its 6.5% unemployment rate threshold for raising the federal funds rate, a target it had set in December 2012.