WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday left its key interest rate at an historic low range of 0% to 0.25% and said its $600 billion bond-buying program would end as scheduled on June 30. Inflation has picked up and the Fed now says the economic recovery is proceeding at "a moderate pace," but the central bank still said the inflation pickup will be temporary and the jobs market is still a concern. The decisions were widely expected. The FOMC made only few changes to the language of the policy statement it issued in March and did not give guidance on the outlook of policy after the end of quantitative easing. The FOMC repeated that rates are likely to stay low for an "extended period." The Fed gave itself flexibility by adding that it would "adjust" its holdings of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities as needed. Attention now turns to Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's first-ever news conference scheduled to begin at 2:15 p.m. Eastern. The Fed will also release its updated economic forecasts for 2011 and 2012 just before the press conference begins. ||||| The press conference by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke was historic. No Fed chair, a position labelled the second most powerful in the US, has given a scheduled conference before. 
 
 The 60 or so reporters gathered on the top floor of the Fed’s building in Washington had many pent up questions, stored over years of sitting through Bernanke testimony to Congress. 
 
 As soon as he stopped talking almost every hand in the room went up. 
 
 The questions were gentle – Rob Carnell at ING in London described the questioners as “about as tame a group of journalists as you could find” – but the conference was generally judged to be a success for the Fed. 
 
 Mr Bernanke smoothly answered questions about gasoline prices, inflation expectations, the dollar, the short-term policy outlook and unemployment without departing far from the Fed’s script or comments that it has made in the past. 
 
 “BB is Brilliantly Boring,” said one hedge fund manager. 
 
 Given the innovation of the press conferences, “the last thing Ben Bernanke wants to do today is make news”, said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in ­Chicago. 
 
 The purpose of the press conferences is to let Mr Bernanke explain the Fed’s policy decision. In plain language, he said that the central bank intended to end its “QE2” asset purchases at the end of June, which the Fed’s statement did not. 
 
 He made clear that the Fed’s first move towards tightening policy was likely to take the form of halting the reinvestment of early repayments from its asset portfolio but that taking such a step would depend on the economic outlook. 
 
 What the first conference did not resolve, however, was how holding them would affect Fed communications over the long run. 
 
 “If press conferences were a no-brainer, they would have done them before now,” said Vincent Reinhart, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and a former head of the Fed’s division of monetary affairs. “What I worry about is that it does erode the Fed’s ­mystique.” 
 
 Press conferences are not a new idea for the Fed. It pondered them for many years as central banks in Europe and Asia took up the practice – some in those countries still recall the disdainful response of their Fed colleagues. The press conferences allow Mr Bernanke to put his stamp on monetary policy decisions and so prevent markets from misinterpreting comments by regional Fed presidents, who are sometimes more hawkish than the consensus of the committee. 
 
 They would “give the market a more concrete sense of what the Fed’s decision was based on and how that links to its forecasts”, said Ms Swonk. 
 
 Press conferences will allow Mr Bernanke to speak directly to the American public, via television, the moment that the Fed makes a policy decision. That will give the Fed a powerful platform from which to defend itself when it comes under fire from Congress – as it did in the wake of its quantitative easing decision last ­November. 
 
 But they leave a number of other Fed communications issues untouched. 
 
 The Fed will still not have a clear inflation objective – knowing the Fed’s inflation forecast is less help if you do not know what level of inflation the central bank is trying to get to. There is also no transparency on what path of monetary policy the Fed assumes it will take in order to achieve its forecasts. 
 
 In time, the press conferences may draw attention to those gaps, and create demands for still more transparency. 
 
 There is also a question about how the press conferences will evolve when Mr Bernanke – widely trusted by his colleagues to reflect honestly their views – leaves the Fed. 
 
 “A couple of years from now this is just going to be another Washington press conference where media trained people try to influence the news,” said Mr Reinhart. 
 
 There is now a sharp distinction between the four of its eight meetings a year where the Fed updates its forecast and holds a press conference, and the other four where it does not do so. 
 
 As a result, it is unlikely that Fed communications have found a new ­equilibrium. 
 
 Editorial Comment
– No surprises from the Fed today: Rates are staying low, and its $600 billion bond-buying program remains on track to end in June, reports MarketWatch. The Fed sees the economic recovery moving at a "moderate pace" and downplayed the risks of inflation. Far more interesting will be Ben Bernanke's first-ever press conference at 2:15pm EST to explain the Fed rationale. David Leonhardt at the New York Times says business reporters "shouldn’t let him get away with the evasions and half-answers that members of Congress too often allow Fed chairmen during their appearances on Capitol Hill." A big one to ask: "Why has Mr. Bernanke decided to accept widespread unemployment for years on end, even though he believes he has the power to reduce it?"