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WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve, which began the year aggressively contention a severe influence crunch and economic weakness, may push the pause button after delivering perhaps one more quarter-point cut in premium rates.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues began their second day of discussions on Wednesday. Financial markets widely expected that those talks would end with an afternoon announcement that the Fed desire divide a key premium rate by a quarter point.

That would be the seventh reduction in the federal funds rate since the central bank began battling against the regard squeeze and the growing possibility of a recession last September.

The Fed delivered two three-quarter-point moves and some half-point cut over an eight-week period from mid-January to mid-March that represented the central shoal’s most assailing censure cuts in a quarter-century.

However, the central bank is expected to suit with a less aggressive quarter-point actuate at this concourse, in part because the financial turmoil seems to bring forth eased and because in that place are growing concerns about inflation.

While there is some design that the Fed might decide to forgo a fixed measure cut, most analysts give faith to that the greater likelihood is a quarter-point move.

“My best guess is that they want to buy a little more insurance against an economy that looks like it is in recession,” said Lyle Gramley, a former Fed board member with the Stanford Financial Group.

The overall economy eked wanting annual product at a rate of 0.6 percent in the in the first place three months of the year, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday, matching the anemic pace turned in during the final three months of last year. Analysts said they looked for the gross domestic product to drop into negative territory in the current April-June period.

A quarter-point cut would move the funds defame to 2 percent, more than 3 percentage points below the 5.25 percent funds rate in reality before Sept. 18, when the Fed started satirical rates.

A quarter-point move would trigger a similar reduction in banks’ prime lending rate, the benchmark for millions of consumer and business loans, which now stands at 5.25 percent.

The Fed’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, composed of Fed provision members in Washington and regional Fed bank presidents, is separation into two camps. One group is concerned that the severe credit crisis and prolonged housing slump could be pushing the geographical division into a deep recession while a smaller faction is worried that the Fed could be running the risk of letting inflation get by heart disclosed of control even for the reason that the system slows.