Wall Street stocks slipped on Monday as investors focused on the Federal Reserve’s final monetary policy decision of the year, scheduled for release later this week.
Markets are strongly positioned for the US central bank to announce another interest rate cut when the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) concludes its meeting on Wednesday. While the expected rate reduction is largely priced in by the stock market, the primary focus for investors will be on the signals provided by Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
Traders will closely scrutinize Powell’s press conference and the FOMC’s updated economic projections for any indication regarding the future trajectory of monetary policy and the pace of potential rate adjustments into the next year.
As of 11:30 am Eastern Time, the S&P 500 slipped 0.3%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.1% lower.
At the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 16.5 points, or 0.03%, to 47,971.51. The S&P 500 rose 4.8 points, or 0.07%, to 6,875.2, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 60.1 points, or 0.25%, to 23,638.217.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.18% from 4.14% late on Friday.
Key Stock Movers
Shares of Warner Bros Discovery jumped 5%, while Paramount Skydance climbed 7.5% after Paramount launched an all-cash bid to acquire WBD worth $108.4 billion, challenging Netflix’ acquisition announced last week.
Netflix stock dropped 4.3%.
IBM stock rose 1% after the tech giant announced it will purchase US data management company Confluent for $11 billion. Confluent soared 28.9%.
Berkshire Hathaway fell 2.2% after the company announced a shake-up of some of its top leadership.
Carvana jumped 10.7% in its first trading after learning it will join the S&P 500 index on December 22.
CoreWeave sank 7% after the AI cloud company said it’s raising $2 billion in debt that it could repay in stock and cash.
Bullion Market
Gold prices edged slightly down on Monday as investors stayed cautious ahead of the Federal Reserve’s two-day policy meeting and Chair Jerome Powell’s remarks for clues on future monetary policy.
Spot gold was down 0.1% at $4,191.44 per ounce by 11:25 a.m. ET (16:25 GMT). US gold futures for February delivery slipped 0.5% to $4,220.70 per ounce.
Gold, a safe-haven asset, tends to do well during economic and geopolitical uncertainty.
Among other metals, silver dropped 0.6% to $57.95 per ounce. Platinum was up 0.1% at $1,643.25, and palladium gained 0.3% to $1,461.60.