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the economy grew at a 4% annual rate last quarter bouncing back nicely from the sharp winter contraction but it put market watchers on edge. could a strengthening economy force the federal reserve to act sooner rather than later. the prospect of higher interest rates sent stocks lower and few direct hints were given. fed s fatigue set in and that sent traders to the sidelines. by the close the dow fell 32 points to 16,880, the nasdaq helped by strong twitter results, rose 20 points to 44.6 and s&p 500 had a fraction l gain. steve liesman has more on today s fed meeting and what may come next. the federal reserve tapered by expected $10 billion and brought bond down to 20 billion, it was 80 billion in december and there was a hawkish tilt to the statements brought about by some better economic mnumbers w got. the philadelphia fed said he thought the current statement did not reflect the improvement in the economic numbers. the fed said the likelihood of below 2% inflat ....
so a scary headline number isn t as bad as it seems when you look underneath. reporter: and that s what economists say federal reserve policy makers did. after studying the economy for two days, chairman ben bernanke and his colleagues issued what most called a no news statement. the fed says it will keep interest rates near zero and plans to keep buying bonds in order to keep interest rates low. today s g.d.p. report didn t change that plan. what the fed is trying to do is generate stronger labor market growth and labor market performance and we don t really have any data on that yet. so we don t have the employment report yet, so we think it is just status quo for the fed at this time. reporter: well, almost status quo. the fed continues to watch congress closely for clues about whether deep, automatic federal spending cuts will take effect in a month or congress will decide to close down parts of the government as republicans and democrats battle over the bud ....
so a scary headline number isn t as bad as it seems when you look underneath. reporter: and that s what economists say federal reserve policy makers did. after studying the economy for two days, chairman ben bernanke and his colleagues issued what most called a no news statement. the fed says it will keep interest rates near zero and plans to keep buying bonds in order to keep interest rates low. today s g.d.p. report didn t change that plan. what the fed is trying to do is generate stronger labor market growth and labor market performance and we don t really have any data on that yet. so we don t have the employment report yet, so we think it is just status quo for the fed at this time. reporter: well, almost status quo. the fed continues to watch congress closely for clues about whether deep, automatic federal spending cuts will take effect in a month or congress will decide to close down parts of the government as republicans and democrats battle over the bud ....
they come here to provide for loved ones, the kind of risk taker who takes risks to live here, embodies an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur that provides a benefit to our economy. our economy actually needs this influx. so what was the real message? to quote jack nicholson in as good as it gets, sell crazy someplace else, because we re all stocked up here. thank you for watching. have a great weekend, and we ll see you back here next saturday. ahead, it is saturday. we re so glad to have your company. always good to be with you. 10:00 here on the east coast. 7:00 on the west coast. you re in the cnn newsroom. we want to begin with the intense search for flight 370. nearly four days after searchers detected that fourth ping in or at least they think it s a ping in the southern indian ocean, now the only sound around is the sound of, well, nothing, just silence. the big question is, have the batteries on the plane s black boxes died already? and is it now t ....
this region surfaced on the internet. let s talk more about the drone strikes. cnn national security analyst peter bergen joins us, he s on the phone. peter, put this strike into context for us and talk about the importance. and is there anything that you know or you can tell about the, let s siee, the three senior members killed in this attack? we don t know who those people were, and we may not know for some period of time. in terms of the kind of the context here, president obama has authorized around 100 drone and cruise missile strikes since he assumed office. there was only one drone strike in yemen in the two presidential george w. bush terms, so it really shows the focus used to be on pakistan and al qaeda members there, the focus is largely shifted to yemen. we re not seeing any drone strikes in pakistan over the last several months, whereas we ve seen eight drone strikes in yemen since the beginning of the year, victor. so, peter, could this strike have ....