The change from 'likely' to 'may be' takes away any strong signal they'll be raising rates.

Inventories will be rebuilt for some months to come and that will bolster economic growth.

The labor market data continue to indicate strong job growth. We expect the economy to grow more strongly in the near term.

They will tend to think of that at the upper end of the neutral range and in this situation, where we've have such a steady decline in the unemployment rate and there are concerns about tightening resource utilization, they'd just as soon go up to the upper end of that range...to try to ensure that inflation doesn't pick up.

They highlighted the long-term rise and not the recent decline. Their concern about core inflation's potential to increase has not been eased by the recent decline in energy prices.

They are likely to acknowledge the firmer data since the January meeting.

It's definitely a labor market that's generating enough jobs to bring down the unemployment rate over time. That process was interrupted by the hurricanes and appears to be resuming.

Consumers are benefiting from the decline in retail gasoline prices and that should continue going forward. The job market does seem to be improving, or at least getting back into a more normal pace after the hurricanes.

It looks like a temporary move lower. It appears that imports were affected by the timing of holidays in Asia.

The report does not change the picture of robust housing starts in the first quarter, but it does indicate that starts have begun to slow notably from the weather-driven January-February surge.