After multiple weeks of speculation about the Federal Reserve’s plans for further stimulus, Chairman Ben Bernanke sounded dovish notes Wednesday, hinting that the central bank will keep interest rates near zero for long after it ends its large-scale bond purchases.

Bernanke, speaking at a National Bureau of Economics Research meeting in Boston, defended the Fed’s decision last month to give the public a rough timeline for winding down the $85 billion in bond purchases, but stressed that the Fed would keep interest rates near zero long after it stopped adding assets to its balance sheet.