U.S. Stocks Close Narrowly Mixed Ahead Of Fed Decision

(RTTNews) - Following the modest pullback seen during trading on Monday, stocks turned in a lackluster performance during Tuesday's session. The major averages fluctuated over the course of the session before closing narrowly mixed.

While the tech-heavy Nasdaq inched up 30.58 points or 0.1 percent to 23,576,49, the S&P 500 edged down 6.00 points or 0.1 percent to 6,840.51 and the Dow fell 179.03 points or 0.4 percent to 47,560.29.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement on Wednesday.

While the Fed is widely expected to lower interest rates by another quarter point, there is considerable uncertainty about the longer-term outlook for rates.

CME Group's FedWatch Tool is currently indicating an 87.4 percent chance the Fed will lower rates by a quarter point on Wednesday but a 67.5 percent chance the central bank will leave rates unchanged in January.

Traders are likely to pay close attention to the wording of the Fed's accompanying statement as well as Fed Chair Jerome Powell's post-meeting press conference for clues about the likelihood of further rate cuts.

On the U.S. economic front, the Labor Department released a report showing job openings in the U.S. edged slightly higher in the month of October.

The Labor Department said job openings crept up to 7.670 million in October from 7.658 million in September.

"The data is unlikely to prevent the Federal Reserve from following through with a rate cut later this week, but it does support our assumption that officials will opt for an extended pause due to signs of labor market stabilization," said Matthew Martin, Senior US Economist at Oxford Economics.

Sector News

While most of the major sectors showed only modest moves, gold stocks moved sharply higher amid an increase by the price of the precious metal, driving the NYSE Arca Gold Bugs Index up by 3.4 percent.

Oil service and brokerage stocks also saw some strength on the day, while housing and pharmaceutical stocks moved to the downside.

Other Markets

In overseas trading, stock markets across the Asia-Pacific region moved mostly lower on Tuesday. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index slumped by 1.3 percent and China's Shanghai Composite Index fell by 0.4 percent, although Japan's Nikkei 225 Index bucked the downtrend and inched up by 0.1 percent.

Meanwhile, the major European markets turned in a mixed performance on the day. While the German DAX Index climbed by 0.5 percent, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index closed just below the unchanged line and the French CAC 40 Index slid by 0.7 percent.

In the bond market, treasuries moved modestly lower over the course of the session. As a result, the yield on the benchmark ten-year note, which moves opposite of its price, rose 1.4 basis points to 4.186 percent.