Federal Reserve ended its massive quantitative easing programme, as expected, but laced its economic assessment with a tinge of hawkishness. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.6 percent. In a statement on Wednesday after a two-day meeting, the Fed ended its quantitative easing programme of bond purchases. The Fed did retain its basic guidance that overnight borrowing costs would remain near zero for a “considerable time”.