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The Federal Reserve Building in Washington.STELIOS VARIAS/Reuters

As the U.S. government reopens for business, investors' eyes have already shifted back to the Federal Reserve's monetary stimulus program. The dust has temporarily settled in Washington, but the looming threat of another political catastrophe means that the Fed's hands may be tied until next year.

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke's talk of "tapering" in June gave rise to speculation that it would begin as early as September. Now, however, observers are expecting a change in policy to be much further off. In Thursday's market session, the first after the end of the shutdown, the U.S. dollar plunged to eight-month lows, Treasury yields dropped to two-month lows, and the S&P 500 reached an all-time high. Clearly, markets are betting the Fed will delay withdrawal of its bond-buying program.

The question now for investors is, when will tapering begin?

Expect Fed policy to be highly contingent on upcoming data on the health of the U.S. economy, as it's yet to be seen what the full damage from the budget impasse will be. "We need more information about how the economy is proceeding, how we are going to weather the most recent government shutdown," Chicago Fed president Charles Evans said after giving a speech in Madison, Wis. Thursday. "I think the most likely outcome is… we continue to go for a couple of meetings to assess this."

Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher, speaking Thursday at the Economic Club of New York, said that tapering discussions have "all been swamped by fiscal shenanigans," and that his view is that the Fed will "stay the course" at the October 29-30 Fed meeting.

"For stocks, if the economy is bad, it's good news, because [the Fed] will keep buying," said Gennadiy Goldberg, U.S. rates strategist at TD Securities. Mr. Goldberg now expects that in terms of the beginning of tapering, "it's a toss up between January and March [2014]", although the possibility that the Jan. 15 debt ceiling deadline may generate another political standoff "throws a wrench in that." He added, "Assuming there is not another crisis, March is the likely date, although June is not out of the question."

Others are floating even later dates for the reduction of stimulus. In a CNBC interview Wednesday, BlackRock Inc. CEO Laurence Fink said the Washington debt crisis is "going to force the Federal Reserve to push off tapering at the very least to March, but maybe as late as June."

The January 28-29 FOMC meeting will be Ben Bernanke's last meeting as chairman of the Federal Reserve. Janet Yellen will take the helm for the March 18-19 meeting, and while policy change during a leadership transition is rare, Yellen's deep ties with Bernanke's Fed may actually make a March taper more likely. "The Fed is looking for the least-worst time," Mr. Goldberg says, "and that is another reason to do it in March – just let Yellen do it."

David Rosenberg, in a research note today, said a modest December taper cannot be ruled out providing economic data in coming days shows an improving labour market and if there's some progress in bridging the gap between views of the U.S. political parties later this year.

"If there is a universal consensus right now, it is that the Fed will not do anything until after Janet Yellen takes the helm in February," said Mr. Rosenberg. "But don't forget that the vote at the last meeting is over, the decision not to taper was that the Fed was concerned over the looming government shutdown which is now over, and that it wanted to be data dependent - and we are going to be hit with a flurry of new information in the next few weeks."

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