NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Stocks headed for a higher open Wednesday after a volatile Tuesday in which the Federal Reserve boosted interest rates, as expected, but indicated that it was not so worried about inflation as to need to accelerate the pace of its rate hike campaign.

Nasdaq and S&P futures point to a higher open Wednesday, when fair value is taken into account.

The Nasdaq composite (up 4.42 to 1,933.07, Charts) added 0.2 percent. The tech-heavy index had see-sawed in a 1 percent range throughout the afternoon, briefly rallying as much as 0.7 percent after the Fed announcement.

The Dow Jones industrial average (up 5.25 to 10,256.95, Charts) and the broader Standard & Poor's 500 (down 0.99 to 1,161.17, Charts) index both ended near unchanged, after falling modestly in the late afternoon.

As tends to be the case, the market was extremely volatile after the Fed announcement, see-sawing back and forth across the unchanged line all afternoon.

But stocks and bonds both rallied in the last five minutes of the session, amid reports that a key sentence had accidently been deleted from the statement.

The sentence, "longer-term inflation expectations remain well contained," did not drastically change the basic message -- that rates will keep rising, that inflation pressures are growing and that the recent slowdown in the economy is not going to change the pace of rate hikes.

However, the sentence did seem to imply that maybe "the Fed is not as worried about inflation as had been thought," said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital.

"If that's the case, that's good for both the stock and bond markets," he added. "And so you saw both react in a way they might not have had the sentence originally been there."

Treasury prices rose, lowering the 10-year note yield to 4.16 percent from 4.19 percent late Monday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.

In currency trading, the dollar fell versus the euro and was little changed versus the yen.

Falling oil prices and the stronger-than-expected read on factory orders from the morning also added to the session's gains.

"This was a strange day, but overall it was OK," said Donald Selkin, director of research at Joseph Stevens. "All other things being equal, we should open higher tomorrow."

Reports on tap for Wednesday include the Institute for Supply Management's read on the services sector of the economy, and the weekly oil inventory report, expected to show a continued rise in oil inventories.

Federal Reserve policy-makers boosted their short-term rate target another quarter-percentage point to 3 percent, as had been expected, the eighth straight increase since late last June.

The central bank reassured investors in its statement by saying it would probably keep raising rates at a measured pace, and not need to speed up, as had been feared.

However, the statement also alluded to a scenario that has worried the markets of late -- slowing growth paired with still rising inflation. (For more on the potential of "stagflation," click here).

The statement noted the recent signs of a slowdown in the economy, saying the "solid pace of spending growth has slowed somewhat," while acknowledging for the second straight meeting that inflation pressures have picked up.

"The Fed tipped its hat to the fact that growth has slowed a bit, and blamed it on energy prices," said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc. What was most interesting, he said, was that the Fed removed a reference from the last meeting, when it had said that higher energy prices had not fed through to the "core" rate of inflation.

A number of big cap blue chips inched lower, including economically-sensitive names such as Honeywell (down $0.86 to $35.30, Research) and Caterpillar (down $0.82 to $87.58, Research).

In addition, the slide in oil prices took its toll on oil stocks, sending the Philadelphia Oil Service Sector (Charts) index down 2.6 percent.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq managed to post gains, due in part to strength in software and Internet shares.

Business software maker Siebel Systems (up $0.59 to $9.50, Research) continued to trade on speculation it may be an Oracle (down $0.01 to $11.59, Research) buyout target, according to published reports.

The Goldman Sachs Software (Charts) index added 1 percent.

ImmunoGen (up $0.51 to $5.67, Research) rallied in active Nasdaq trade on news that fellow biotech Genentech (up $2.96 to $73.24, Research) has opted to renew their research and development pact for another 3-year term. The deal is worth about $2 million.

Among other movers, Tyco International (down $2.07 to $28.65, Research) tumbled about 6.75 percent and topped the New York Stock Exchange's most-active list after the conglomerate forecast current-quarter and full-year earnings that were short of estimates, due in part to higher commodity costs.

TXU (down $4.70 to $81.65, Research) lost 5.4 percent in active NYSE trade after Merrill Lynch downgraded the stock to "neutral" from "buy," saying that its shares had hit the firm's previous price target.

Market breadth was negative. On the New York Stock Exchange, losers edged winners by a narrow margin on volume of 1.67 billion shares. On the Nasdaq, decliners and advancers were little changed on volume of 1.86 billion shares.

U.S. light crude oil for June delivery fell $1.42 to settle at $49.50 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

March factory orders were stronger than expected, according to a government report. Orders increased 0.1 percent in the month, versus expectations for a fall of 1.2 percent, according to a consensus of economists surveyed by Briefing.com.

Orders declined a downwardly revised 0.5 percent in February.

COMEX gold fell $2.10 to $428.40 an ounce.

In global trade, Asian-Pacific stocks ended mostly lower, and European shares ended mostly higher.