U.S. stocks saw losses gather some steam Wednesday afternoon after the Federal Reserve, kept benchmark interest rates steady, as expected, but referred to inflation as transitory and said that it would need substantial further progress before tapering its asset-purchase program, which is currently running at $120 billion a month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.81%
was down nearly 300 points, or 0.9%, at 33,999 the S&P 500 index
SPX,
-0.69%
was off 0.7% at 4,217, while the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
-0.76%
was off 0.6% at 13,995.
