The Federal Reserve should maintain its $85 billion-a-month asset purchase plan into early next year, given the weak growth outlook, according to the International Monetary Fund's staff assessment of the U.S. economy released on Friday. The IMF staff has forecast only a 1.7% annual growth rate for the U.S. economy in 2013, well below the Fed's forecast of a 2.3%-2.6% rate. Many analysts think that the odds are high that the Fed will slow down the pace of its asset purchase program in September. The IMF said that the benefits of the Fed's quantitative easing continue to outweigh the costs. But it added the central ... (full story)