The FOMC also announced it would lower its monthly long-term Treasury bond purchases to $40 billion and mortgage-backed securities to $35 billion a month, both reductions of $5 billion.

(Read more: Here's what changed in new Fed statement)

"I think it logically, this is what they had to do," said David Kelly, managing director at JPMorgan Funds. "If you look at what's happened this year, the unemployment rate has come down to 7 percent. We've got housing starts over a million units. We got the S&P 500 up 25 percent. In this economy, you have to pull back from the most extreme monetary policy in a century. So I think it's overdue. I'm glad to see it."