Fed on Track to Ease Up on Bond Buying Later This Year .

Federal Reserve officials are likely to signal at their June policy meeting that they're on track to begin pulling back their $85-billion-a-month bond-buying program later this year, as long as the economy doesn't disappoint.

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Bloomberg News

Fed chief Ben Bernanke is likely to repeat the bond-buying refrain: An easing may start 'in the next few meetings.'

A good-but-not-great jobs report Friday ensured officials wouldn't want to act right away and would instead want to see more data before taking a delicate step toward winding down the program. But they could point at their next meeting to improvement they're seeing in the economy, a prerequisite to reducing the so-called quantitative-easing program.

Plotting out a move is a tricky task, in part because investors are on edge about the Fed's plans for the program. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke signaled last month that the central bank could start pulling back the program "in the next few meetings," a view echoed by other officials in recent weeks, including some of the program's most vocal supporters.
The Fed's next meeting is June 18-19, and after that at the end of July and in mid-September.