The Federal Reserve will probably decide to taper its bond buying by another $10 billion a month in Chairman Ben Bernanke's final meeting Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the Financial Times.

The Fed agreed to its first tapering in December, pushing quantitative easing down to $75 billion a month.

Fed officials anticipate slashing $10 billion off the central bank's bond purchases at each meeting this year, unless the economy shifts markedly. That pace would put an end to quantitative easing by year-end.

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The weak December jobs report and the emerging market turmoil that depressed U.S. stocks Thursday and Friday aren't seen preventing the Fed from tapering this week, according to the Times.

Janet Yellen officially takes over as Fed chair Feb. 1. One important issue she will have to deal with is forward guidance, the Times notes. At its last meeting the Fed said it likely won't raise short-term interest rates until "well past" the time unemployment falls below 6.5 percent.

With the rate already down to 6.7 percent in December, Yellen may have to figure out another way to communicate to markets that rates aren't headed higher until 2015 or 2016.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the Fed is likely to taper at this week's meeting, based on interviews with Fed officials and their public comments.

"We're likely to continue on a path of gradual, measured reductions in the pace of purchases, assuming the economy tracks as we expect it to," San Francisco Fed President John Williams told The Journal earlier this month.

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