U.S. Stocks Close Weak As Investors Weigh Fed Minutes, Await Inflation Data

(RTTNews) - U.S. stocks failed to hold early gains and ended lower on Wednesday with traders reacting to the minutes from the Federal Reserve's most recent policy meeting, and looking ahead to the crucial consumer price inflation data.

Despite spending much of the day's trading session in positive territory, the major averages all ended on a negative note.

The Dow, which climbed more than 200 points to 29,455.12 around noon, ended the day with a loss of 28.34 points or 0.1 percent at 29,210.85. The S&P 500 ended lower by 11.81 points or 0.33 percent at 3,577.03, off the day's high of 3,608.34, while the Nasdaq, which advanced to 10,494.53, settled at 10,417.10, posting a loss of 9.09 points or 0.09%.

Walgreens Boots Alliance, Walmart, Verizon, Cisco Systems, Merck, Boeing and Honeywell International ended weak.

Shares of PepsiCo rallied 4.2 percent after the company raised its annual guidance and reported stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings.

Shares of Moderna Inc. climbed more than 8 percent. The company announced that it would team up with Merck to develop and sell a cancer drug.

JP Morgain gained about 1.7 percent. Coca-Cola, Intel and Nike gained 1 to 1.25 percent.

The minutes from the Fed meeting showed policymakers pushed back on the idea of a pivot, choosing to give priority to their commitment to take inflation.

The minutes showed that the policymakers felt slowing the pace of tightening would be appropriate while assessing the effects of cumulative policy adjustments on growth and inflation.

The members lowered their projections for the economy and expect GDP to grow at just a 0.2 percent annualized pace in 2022 and just 1.2 percent in 2023, well below trend and big drop from 2021, which saw the strongest gains since 1984.

The summary of economic projections at the meeting pointed to a "terminal rate," or end point of rate increases to be around 4.6 percent.

Meanwhile, data released by the Labor Department today showed the Producer Price Index for final demand in the U.S. increased by 0.4% month-over-month in September, rising for the first time in three months. The index had slipped by a revised 0.2% in August. Year-on-year, the PPI jumped 8.5% in September, the data showed.

Investors now await the data on U.S. consumer price inflation, due on Thursday.

In overseas trading, Asian stocks ended on a mixed note on Wednesday after recent string of losses on worries about slowing growth and the impact of rising interest rates on corporate profits.

The major European markets closed weak, extending recent losses, as global growth concerns, rising interest rates and geopolitical tensions continued to weigh.

The pan European Stoxx 600 ended 0.53 percent down. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 drifted down 0.86 percent, Germany's DAX declined 0.39 percent, and France's CAC 40 shed 0.25 percent.