And thus it begins! The Fed’s tapering of stimulus that is. After economists’ expectations were disappointed when the Fed refrained from tapering in its September and a government shutdown that threatened to blow up in the air the entire economy of the U.S., the Fed decided yesterday to lower its bond-purchasing budget to $75 billion.

Following the decision the dollar gained against most of its 16 major peers. Currencies, however, did not swing as much as traders anticipated as the Fed highlighted that it intents to keep borrowing costs low for longer. After a four-month slump against the dollar, the yen regained some of its strength yesterday. Japanese policy makers started their meeting early this morning which will decide the future of Japan’s Quantitative Easing into the new year. The euro, however, dropped before discussion regarding a planned banking union began at a summit of European Union leaders.

Many economists see the Fed’s decision to begin tapering now as an entryway into a more stable and normal monetary policy for the future.

At the end of its meeting yesterday, the Federal Open Market Committee announced that it would cut its QE programme from $85 billion to $75 billion, a commitment that promises to slowly remove the unprecedented stimulus set in place by the Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to ease economic recovery from the worst crises since the 1930s recession.

Policy makers were also quick to assure the public that the benchmark rate would likely remain low “well past the time that the unemployment rate declines below 6.5 percent, especially if projected inflation continues to run below” the goal of 2 percent. The rate for federal-funds has remained within the narrow range of 0 to 0.25 percent since the crisis hit the U.S. in 2008.