NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The party's on today after a few well-chosen words from the monetary host of the hour: the Federal Reserve.

In yesterday's policy statement accompanying the rate hike the Fed added a phrase that was not included when it hiked the fed funds rate on June 30. It said that "core inflation" which strips out food and energy prices from the government's price index "has been relatively low in recent months." This phrase fleshed out a sentence that appeared in both the June and August statements that "longer-term inflation expectations remain well contained but pressures on (the actual rate of) inflation have stayed elevated."

The markets were braced for the possibility that soaring oil and gas prices and a stronger labor market might have caused the Fed to signal more worries about inflation and perhaps more rate hikes or bigger rates hikes in the months ahead.

But it did not. And it's still upbeat on the economy. The silver lining in the high oil-price cloud it sees is that consumers are still spending and the labor market is still improving.

So party on stocks! At least until the Fed achieves its goal of slowing down the economy with endless rate hikes. It's called taking the punch bowl away just when the party gets really fun, but we're not there yet it seems.

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-- Kathleen Hays is economics correspondent for CNN and contributes to Lou Dobbs Tonight. You can read more of her columns here.