us stock benchmarks on wednesday afternoon were pivoting modestly higher as the federal reserve held interest rates steady as expected but quickened the pace of winddown of its bondbuying program opening the door to interestrate increases in the first half of 2022 projections from the fed point to three rate increases next year with the current fedfunds rate at a range between 0 and 025 fed chairman jerome powell will host a news conference at 230 pm et to discuss the central banks updated policy the move to end the stimulus program sooner than officials planned at their meeting last month offers the most concrete sign of how powells focus has shifted toward preventing higher inflation from becoming entrenched but the updated policy comes as the omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes covid19 spreads sparking fresh concerns about economic recovery and supplychain bottlenecks that have helped underpin rising inflation the dow jones industrial average djia popped into positive territory up 02 at 35603 the sp 500 index spx climbed 02 to 4641 and the nasdaq composite index comp briefly climbed to less than 01 higher at 15249 the 10year treasury note tmubmusd10y yields 146 from around 144 before the fed update