The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it still sees the federal funds rate at 1.4 percent by the end of 2017, unchanged from its June forecast.

The U.S. central bank also maintained its 2018 projection, saying it sees the benchmark rate at 2.1 percent.

The committee said it decided to leave rates unchanged.

The Fed, however, lowered its 2019 outlook for the federal funds rate from its June projection. It now expects the benchmark rate to be 2.7 percent by the end of 2019, instead of the 2.9 percent it previously projected.

The targets for appropriate federal funds rates by Federal Open Market Committee participants are plotted in a chart that has come to be known as the "dot plot."

The chart shows the anonymous interest rate forecasts of Fed officials, and it's used by the market to determine where the central bank believes rates are going, including its longer-term neutral rate.