S&P 500 rises as Wall Street gets ready for Fed meeting this week: Live updates
A trader works, as a screen displays a news conference by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell following the Fed rate announcement, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on July 26, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
The S&P 500 rose on Monday, with tech shares kicking off the week on solid footing as investors awaited a key Federal Reserve meeting.
The broad market index traded 0.3% higher, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.9%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ticked down 44 points, or 0.1%. The 30-stock Dow entered the session riding a seven-day losing streak.
Shares of Apple, Tesla and Google-parent Alphabet all traded higher. Noticeably absent from the Nasdaq’s trend higher was artificial intelligence darling Nvidia, which pulled back more than 2% and entered correction territory. Shares of Broadcom led the technology-heavy index higher with a gain of 8%.
The Fed set to begin its two-day policy meeting Tuesday. It’s expected to cut rates by a quarter-point at its conclusion on Wednesday. The key for investors will be forward guidance on future policy moves.
“While it’s easy to make a big deal about every single FOMC decision and press conference, this final one of 2024 may be the most intriguing,” said Jay Woods, chief global strategist at Freedom Capital Markets.
“Since the first cut in September, unemployment numbers have stabilized,” he added. “However, the inflation numbers have ticked the other way ever so slightly. In fact, they have gone up each month since cuts began. Is this just ‘sticky’ or the start of a new trend?”
The stock market is coming off a sluggish week. The Dow fell 1.8% last week and has lost ground in each of the last seven sessions. The S&P 500 dipped 0.6%, and has retreated in four of the past five sessions. The Nasdaq outperformed, grinding out a gain of 0.3% for the week.
