The Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement yesterday that growth, while slowed by “transitory factors,” faces “downside risks” even after strains in global financial markets have eased. The expansion will pick up and unemployment will fall in response to “appropriate policy accommodation,” Fed officials said in a statement after a two-day meeting.

“Everything in this statement suggests that they will continue to buy $85 billion per month and that we still have a ways to go before they’re satisfied that the labor market is where they want it to be,” said Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist at Jefferies & Co. in New York and a former Richmond Fed economist.