In the currency market, the dollar slipped against the euro late in the session. Late Wednesday, the euro was trading at $1.5612 vs. $1.5566 on Tuesday.

Fed, Fed, Fed was all anyone wanted to talk about yesterday, as the Committee, although there had been speculation to the contrary, surprised few by shaving another quarter-point off of interest rates, to 2%.

Those scrutinizing the accompanying rhetoric for a sense of future direction were left wanting.

“During the last several sessions currency traders have begun to question whether the Fed might serve up a warning that monetary policy is on hold. However, there was little in today’s … statement to signal that they are definitely on hold,” said Andrew Wilkinson, senior market analyst at Interactive Brokers.

“They were decidedly quite rightly concerned with the ongoing weakness in the economy, especially labor and housing. The takeaway feeling I get after this is that the Fed is reserving the right to deliver more stimulus at a later date if it’s warranted,” Wilkinson added.

Among the day’s numbers, the Commerce Department said that growth in real gross domestic product for the first quarter was estimated at 0.6% for the second straight quarter. That was grim, but actually higher than the 0.2% growth rate projected by economists.

Despite the higher-than-expected reading, “No one would confuse this with a healthy economy,” wrote Douglas Porter, of BMO Capital Markets.

In fact, as Dow Jones Marketwatch wrote: “With inventory building adding 0.8 percentage points to growth, the headline GDP figure was stronger than the details of the report. Final sales of domestic product fell 0.2%, while final domestic sales dropped 0.4% — the first decline since the recession of 1991.

“The economy produced more goods and services, but the extra output went into warehouses and on ships, not into current consumption or investment. With inventories building up, output in the second quarter could be much softer.”