US MARKET UPDATE Stocks hold steady as investors await Fed de | Trade News

US MARKET UPDATE

Stocks hold steady as investors await Fed decision

U.S. stocks were little changed in early morning trading on Wednesday as investors readied for Wednesday’s highly anticipated Federal Reserve decision.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was flat, while the S&P 500 rose less than 0.1%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was down 0.2%.


Retail sales for November came in worse than expected, rising 0.3% month-over-month. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones were looking for a 0.8% month.

On the political front, congressional Democrats passed a bill raising the debt ceiling, sending it to President Joe Biden early Wednesday just under the wire for when Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the government would run out of spending power.

On Tuesday, the major averages slipped, exacerbated by selling in software names like Microsoft and Adobe. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 106 points. The S&P 500 fell 0.75%.

The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite was the relative underperformer, dipping 1.1% as Facebook-parent Meta Platforms, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google-parent Alphabet all closed lower.

Also hurting sentiment Tuesday was the hotter-than-expected inflation reading for November’s producer price index showing a year-over-year increase of 9.6%, the fastest pace on record. This was above the 9.2% expected by economists, according to Dow Jones. The index rose 0.8% month over month, above the 0.5% expected.