Wednesday’s announcement by the Fed indicated that it would reduce monthly bond purchase paces later in March. This move follows earlier indications from the Fed that it will begin to wind down an existing program, which was accelerated in March 2020 in response to market concerns. Covid pandemic

The major indexes on Wall Street climbed to new records on Wednesday following the Fed announcement, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 104.95 points to 36,157.58 while the S&P 500 advanced 0.65% to 4,660.57. The Nasdaq Composite increased 1.04% to 15,811.58.

The morning Asia trading hour saw oil prices lower, with an international benchmark Brent crude futuresFalling 1.1% to $81.09 a barrel U.S. crude futuresAt $79.77 per bar, they were down 1.35%

The U.S. dollar indexThe indices that track the greenback in relation to a basket of peers were at 93.885, after falling below 94.

The Japanese yenThe dollar traded at 114.14 dollars, a level that is weaker than the levels of 113.6 earlier in this week. The Australian dollarFollowing a drop from over $0.752 during the previous trading week, $0.7461 was changed.

— CNBC’s Jeff Cox contributed to this report.