With traders looking ahead to the Federal Reserve's highly anticipated monetary policy announcement, stocks may show a lack of direction in early trading on Wednesday. The major index futures are currently pointing to a roughly flat open for the markets.
Trading activity may remain somewhat subdued in the lead-up to the announcement from the Fed, which is due at about 2 pm ET, followed by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's accompanying press conference.
The Fed is not expected to announce an immediate change in policy, but traders will be looking for any signals regarding when the central bank will scale back its asset purchase program.
Rob Carnell, chief international economist at ING, said, "The message that the Fed is thinking about scaling back QE before too long has been received loud and clear."
"What markets now want to know is 'exactly how is this likely to proceed?', and until more clarity on that is forthcoming, markets are likely to remain jittery," he added.
A lack of major U.S. economic data ahead of the announcement from the Fed is likely to add to the choppy trading on Wall Street.
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