Major U.S. Averages Close Mixed After Choppy Ride Ahead Of Fed Rate Decision

(RTTNews) - U.S. stocks swung between gains and losses on Tuesday with investors largely making cautious moves ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy announcement.

The Fed, which is scheduled to announce its policy on Wednesday, is widely expected to hike interest rates by 50 basis points. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase & Co. said they expect the Fed to raise interest rates by 75 basis points.

Among the major averages, the Dow and the S&P 500 both extended their losses to a fifth straight session. The Dow, which dropped to 30,144.23 in the final hour, ended the session with a loss of 151.91 points or 0.5 percent at 30,364.83.

The S&P 500 ended lower by 14.15 points or 0.38 percent at 3,735.48 after scaling a high of 3,778.18 and a low of 3,705.68 intraday.

The Nasdaq settled at 10,828.35, gaining 19.12 points or 0.18 perccent. The index touched a high of 10,926.81 and a low of 10,733.04 in the session.

Coca-Cola, P&G, Walt Disney, United Health, Salesforce.com, American Express, Home Depot, JP Morgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson and Cisco Systems shed 1 to 4 percent.

Shares of Oracle soared more than 10 percent after the software company beat estimates while reporting strong guidance for the next fiscal year. Boeing shares rallied nearly 3 percent.

Twitter gained about 0.5 percent as hopes about Elon Musk following through on his $44 billion deal to acquire the social media giant.

In U.S. economic releases today, data from the Labor Department showed producer prices increased 0.8 percent month-on-month in May 2022, following a 0.4 percent rise in April.

The producer price index for final demand less foods and energy rose 0.5 percent from a month earlier in May of 2022, accelerating from a downwardly revised 0.2 percent gain in the prior month. Year-on-year, core producer prices rose by 8.3 percent, easing from a revised 8.6 percent increase in April.

Annual producer inflation in the US edged slightly lower to 10.8 percent in May of 2022 from 10.9 percent in April and a 21-year high of 11.5 percent hit in March.

According to a report from the National Federation of Independent Business, the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index in the U.S. edged down to 93.1 in May of 2022, the lowest since April of 2020, and compared to 93.2 in April.

In overseas trading, Asian stocks ended broadly down on Tuesday on growth worries.

European stocks fell, extending recent losses, amid rising concerns that aggressive monetary policy tightening by central banks could push the global economy into a recession.

The Bank of England is seen raising interest rates by a modest 25 basis points on Thursday despite Monday's data showing a contraction in the country's GDP in April.

The pan European Stoxx 600 ended 1.26 percent down. Germany's DAX fell 0.91 percent, France's CAC 40 drifted down 1.2 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 shed 0.25 percent.