$A lower in quiet trade ahead of FOMC The Australian dollar is slightly lower in quiet trade ahead of the outcome of a US Federal Reserve meeting. At 1200 AEST on Tuesday, the local unit was trading at 89.50 US cents, down from 89.54 cents on Monday. During the morning, the currency traded in a range between 89.29 US cents and 89.59 cents. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is expected to announce a tapering of the $US85 billion-a-month bond buying program when its meeting finishes early on Thursday morning, Australian time. ForexCT head of research Steven Dooley said the Australian dollar had struggled to get above 90 US cents recently because most traders believe the currency will fall after the meeting. "What the interesting move over the 24 hours has been is that we've seen a huge move in equities and commodities overnight, with gold pushing higher and oil pushing higher but the Aussie dollar was unmoved," he said. Normally the Aussie dollar would move in line with those commodities but I think it's a case at the moment that traders are not willing to take a positions ahead of the FOMC meeting. The Australian dollar failed to react to the release of the minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia's December board meeting. The RBA left the cash rate unchanged at 2.5 per cent at the meeting but indicated it was open to cutting the cash rate in the first half of 2014 if need be. Mr Dooley said further comments from the RBA about the Australian dollar being uncomfortably high would have pushed the currency lower but there was no mention made of it. "The RBA basically held the line with the minutes today and there was a very muted reaction to it," he said. Meanwhile, the Australian bond market was weaker at noon. At 1200 AEST on Tuesday, the March 2014 10-year bond futures contract was trading at 95.780 (implying a yield of 4.220 per cent), down from 95.815 (4.185 per cent) on Monday. The March 2014 three-year bond futures contract was at 97.020 (2.980 per cent), down from 97.035 (2.965 per cent).