Wall St falls after 'status quo' Fed statement

By Ryan Vlastelica

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday, with the losses accelerating even after the Federal Reserve said it would hold steady with its monetary policy.

The central bank gave no explicit indication that it was close to pulling back on its program to buy $85 billion in bonds per month, a policy that has been a key to the market's rally this year.

Investors have speculated the Fed might start drawing down soon, contributing to a spate of volatility, though equities advanced strongly on both Monday and Tuesday ahead of the statement.

"The fact that this is status quo is enough to put a little pressure on the market, largely because of the run-up we've seen over the past few days," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia.

"This is something of a non-event statement. It didn't spook markets in terms of advancing notions of tapering, but it largely leans towards deferring that tapering until later this year."

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 58.02 points, or 0.38 percent, at 15,260.21. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 6.39 points, or 0.39 percent, at 1,645.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 13.02 points, or 0.37 percent, at 3,469.16.

The S&P 500 has regained some losses in the last few days as confidence increased that the Fed will leave the current stimulus in place even if Bernanke nods at the need to begin reducing bond purchases later in the year.

The stimulus helped the stock market reach a record high on May 21, one day before Bernanke said the Fed could reduce its bond-buying in the "next few meetings" if the economy gained momentum. His comments rocked markets, boosting bond yields and halting stocks' rally.

Despite the increased volatility of the past month, the market has moved largely sideways. The S&P 500 closed on Tuesday just 1 percent below its record high of 1,669.16 on May 21.

Shares of Adobe Systems Inc rose 6.8 percent to $46.31 a day after the maker of Photoshop and Acrobat software reported a higher-than-expected adjusted quarterly profit and said demand rose for Creative Cloud, the subscription-based version of its flagship software package.

FedEx Corp reported higher quarterly profit than expected as its ground shipment business improved. It also said jet fuel prices dropped. Shares were up 2.4 percent at $101.85.

(Editing by Nick Zieminski)