Nonetheless, they shied away from providing more forward guidance until the new US administration's policies were known and could be modelled.

On this occasion, the Federal Open Market Committee's policy statement no longer stated that policymakers had gained more confidence that inflation was falling back towards 2% sustainably.

Nonetheless, in his post-meeting press conference Fed boss Jerome Powell said the omission was not a signal.

Instead, he said, to have reiterated that phrase would have constituted fresh forward guidance when it was more prudent not to do so.

Yet progress had been made on returning inflation to 2.0% and monetary policy remained restrictive.

The decision to reduce the target range for the Fed funds rate to 4.5-4.75% was unanimous, unlike in September.

Back then, governor Michelle Bowman voted for a 25bp reduction instead of 50bp like everyone else on the FOMC.

The FOMC did reiterate on Thursday that inflation remained "somewhat elevated", that the risks to its dual objectives of full employment and stable prices were "roughly in balance" and that the economic outlook was "uncertain".