ING Research discusses its reaction to FOMC policy statement.

"As widely expected, the Federal Reserve has lowered the target range for the federal funds rate by 25bp to 2.00-2.25% and left the door open to more easing. It has also decided to conclude its balance sheet run down in August - two months earlier than previously announced. Today’s decision to cut interest rates, for the first time since December 2008, was not unanimous though with Esther George and Eric Rosengren preferring to see policy left unchanged," ING notes. We characterise today’s move as a precautionary, pre-emptive policy change to ensure that the US economic expansion – already the longest since the National Bureau for Economic Research’s database began in 1854 – continues for a good while longer. However, the Fed never cuts rates just once and we doubt it will this cycle," ING adds.