In his testimony to congress Wednesday, Bernanke said the job situation remained unsatisfactory and tried to illustrate the Fed is not backing away from easy monetary policy.
He did, however, repeat the intention to draw back on the $85bn-a-month asset purchase programme if the economy stays strong.
He said: “On the one hand, if economic conditions were to improve faster than expected, and inflation appeared to be rising decisively back toward our objective, the pace of asset purchases could be reduced somewhat more quickly.
“On the other hand, if the outlook for employment were to become relatively less favourable, if inflation did not appear to be moving back toward 2%, or if financial conditions – which have tightened recently – were judged to be insufficiently accommodative to allow us to attain our mandated objectives, the current pace of purchases could be maintained for longer.”
The dollar weakened on the news, while US benchmark 10-year Treasuries yields fell to 2.46% from 2.55%.
