The central bank today said it will further shrink auctions of cash loans to banks and Treasury securities to bond dealers, reducing the combined initiatives to $100 billion by January from $450 billion. The Treasury has “begun the process of exiting from some emergency programs,” the chief of the government’s $700 billion financial-rescue fund said separately.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and other policy makers are trying to balance two goals: securing an economic recovery after the deepest contraction and financial crisis since the Great Depression while withdrawing fiscal and monetary stimulus in time to avoid driving inflation and borrowing costs higher.

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